SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY
Edited by H. de B. Gibbins, M.A.

THE ALIEN INVASION

SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY.

Edited by H. de B. GIBBINS, M.A.

Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d.

Messrs. Methuen announce the publication of a series of volumes upon those topics of social, economic and industrial interest that are at the present moment foremost in the public mind. Each volume of the series is written by an author who is an acknowledged authority upon the subject with which he deals, and who treats his question in a thoroughly sympathetic but impartial manner, with special reference to the historic aspect of the subject.

The following form the earlier Volumes of the Series:—

1. TRADE UNIONISM—NEW AND OLD. G. Howell, M.P., Author of
The Conflicts of Capital and Labour. [Ready.
2. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY: An Inquiry into the Industrial Condition of
the Poor. By J. A. Hobson, M.A. [Ready.
3. THE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT TO-DAY. G. J. Holyoake,
Author of The History of Co-operation. [Ready.
4. MUTUAL THRIFT. Rev. J. Frome Wilkinson, M.A., Author of The
Friendly Society Movement. [Ready.
5. THE COMMERCE OF NATIONS. C. F. Bastable, LL.D., Professor of
Political Economy in the University of Dublin. [Ready.
6. THE ALIEN INVASION. W. H. Wilkins, B.A., Secretary to the
Association for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens.
(With an Introductory Note by the Right Reverend the Bishop of Bedford.)
[Ready.
7. THE RURAL EXODUS: Problems of Village Life. P. Anderson
Graham. [In the Press.
8. LAND NATIONALIZATION.Harold Cox, B.A. [In the Press.

The following are in preparation:—

9. MODERN LABOUR AND OLD ECONOMICS. H. de B. Gibbins, M.A.
(Editor), Author of The Industrial History of England.
10. ENGLISH SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. Hubert Bland, one of the
Authors of Fabian Essays.
11. ENGLISH LAND AND ENGLISH MEN. Rev. C. W. Stubbs, M.A.,
Author of The Labourers and the Land.
12. CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND. Rev. J. Carter, M.A., of
Pusey House, Oxford.
13. THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. J. R. Diggle, M.A., Chairman of
the London School Board.
14. POVERTY AND PAUPERISM. Rev. L. R. Phelps, M.A., Fellow of
Oriel College, Oxford.
15. CONTINENTAL LABOUR. W. Maxwell.
16. WOMEN'S WORK. Lady Dilke.

THE ALIEN INVASION

BY
W. H. WILKINS, B.A.

(Clare College, Cambridge)
AUTHOR OF A MONOGRAPH UPON "THE TRAFFIC IN ITALIAN CHILDREN"
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BY THE
RIGHT REVEREND THE BISHOP OF BEDFORD

Methuen & Co.

18, BURY STREET, LONDON, W.C.
1892
[All Rights reserved]

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.

TO

The Right Honourable the Earl of Dunraven, K.G.,

THE LEADER OF
THE MOVEMENT FOR PROTECTING OUR PEOPLE
AGAINST THE INVASION OF THE DESTITUTE
AND WORTHLESS OF OTHER LANDS,

This Little Volume is Dedicated,

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF MUCH ENCOURAGEMENT, AND MANY KINDNESSES.

[AUTHOR'S PREFACE.]

My object in writing this little book has been to collect together in a popular and readable form the main facts connected with the question of destitute immigration. I have endeavoured to set forth as concisely as possible the evils consequent upon our present system, and to place before the public the leading arguments in favour of some moderate and judicious restriction of the influx of the destitute and worthless of other countries. In doing so, I have studiously avoided identifying this important question with any particular party, or any particular creed. It is a matter which concerns the nation as a whole, and it is one in which men of all creeds and parties—Jew or Christian, Liberal or Conservative—may unite together for good. The advisability of restricting our present system of unchecked destitute immigration is a matter upon which there exists considerable difference of opinion. In giving expression to my earnest convictions, I ask for that same indulgence which I willingly extend to those who may differ from my conclusions.

W. H. Wilkins.

15b, Arlington Street, S.W.
January 1892.

[INTRODUCTORY NOTE.]

I have been asked to write a short preface to a work in which the author proposes to afford the public information with respect to the immigration of destitute aliens into this country. He will discuss the evil incident to an immigration that is practically uncontrolled; and he will suggest the lines in which, in his opinion, remedial legislation should be promoted.

The subject is one of very great importance, and I am confident it will be approached by the writer in a dispassionate spirit. He must know that he will fail of his object unless it is perfectly clear he is not influenced by any prejudice against the race to which the greater part of the destitute immigrants are known to belong. He will make it abundantly clear there is no desire or intention to forbid the man who is persecuted, either for his religious creed or his political opinions, from finding an asylum among us.

It is the opinion of many who have given to this subject much consideration, that the destitute foreigners who come to England in such numbers exchange into a condition that is hardly less tolerable, than that from which they have fled in the lands of their birth. It is said they exercise an influence that is morally and socially to the hurt of those among whom they come to dwell. It is contended that they injuriously compete with our own people in the labour market. It is often urged that they compel our people to seek a home and employment in other lands, because of the glut they cause in the labour market, and because of their readiness to accept wages and to be content with conditions of living which are unacceptable, and something more than merely unacceptable, to the Englishman.

These allegations require to be investigated. It is important to ascertain what the number of foreign immigrants really is, and what is their condition when they land among us. It is desirable we should know what provision is made, if any, for their reception, and what becomes of the men, women, and children, who are said to arrive in London in large numbers, and for the most part absolutely destitute. Is overcrowding, with its consequent miseries and ills, appreciably increased in the East End of London? These are questions on which the public ought to be informed, and the guardians of the health, and morals, and general well-being of the people must desire to be enlightened on these matters. If the evils that are said to be the results of the immigration of destitute aliens are found to exist, it will be for our legislators to devise in their wisdom the appropriate remedy. I will only venture to express one opinion with reference to this difficult and intricate subject.

I am of opinion it is not safe to allow things to remain as they are without thorough investigation. On the part of the immigrants there is a widespread feeling that they are the victims of unjust aspersions; on the part of the native population there is a disquieting feeling that the authorities are indifferent to their interests, and careless of their sufferings. The antipathy of race to race is consequently and injuriously fomented. It is not to the good of the whole community that this state of things should be allowed to continue. If this book shall help to throw light upon the matters in dispute, and influence public opinion to move the authorities to investigation, and, if the evils said to follow upon unrestricted immigration are found to exist, to endeavour to remove them by legislation—it will not have been written in vain.

R. C. Bedford.

[CONTENTS.]

THE ALIEN INVASION.

[CHAPTER I.]
THE GENERAL ASPECT.

The unrestricted influx of destitute aliens into the United Kingdom is a matter which has for some time past attracted a considerable amount of public attention. Within the last few years a Select Committee of the House of Commons has inquired into this question, and has published a report acknowledging its extent and recognizing some of its evils. The Sweating Committee of the House of Lords has dealt with it indirectly, so far as it concerned the subject in hand. Trades Unions and Labour Congresses have passed resolutions condemning, in a more or less general way, the present system of unchecked and unsifted immigration. But it is only quite recently that it has advanced to a place within the realm of practical politics. Few public questions have ripened so quickly as this has done. Last year[1] it was discussed, it is true, but only in an academic way, as one of those matters which loom among "the dim and distant visions of the future." To-day it is emphatically one of the questions of the hour. The Electorate is considering it, the Press—that sure reflex of public opinion—is discussing it, and the leaders of political parties, forced by the growing pressure from beneath, are making up their minds about it.

The reasons for this are not very far to seek. Two great causes have tended to bring this question to the front at the present time. One, the recent edicts promulgated by the Czar against his Jewish subjects in Russia, edicts with which no right-thinking man can have any possible sympathy, and which necessarily have the result of driving many thousands of Russian Jews to seek their fortunes anew in other lands; the other, the action this year[2] of the United States Government, in passing a law which has had the effect of practically closing the Atlantic ports to the poorer class of aliens altogether. Now since the inevitable tendency in the movement of peoples is from East to West, and since Great Britain, after America, is admittedly the country to which the greatest portion of these Eastern immigrants come, it follows, as a matter of course, that the action of the American Government in thus shutting their doors to the refuse population of the Old World, cannot fail to have the effect of greatly intensifying the evil here. Our little overcrowded island is really the only place left for them to come—the only country among all the nations of Europe, with one insignificant exception, which has not seen fit to protect its own people against the influx of the destitute and unfit of other lands. These are the two principal causes which have forced this question to the front. There is another also which will prevent its ever again sinking into the background. It is this. The working-classes of this country, with whom rests the balance of political power, have taken the matter up, and, having once taken it up, they will not let it drop. On this I shall dwell more fully later on. I merely allude to it now, as one of the factors which will have to be considered in dealing with this problem.

In taking a general survey of the situation, the first thing that strikes one is the isolated action of England in this matter, when compared with other nations. It may be laid down as an axiom admitting of no cavil, that it is the duty of every State to deal with its own paupers and undesirable citizens; and moreover it is obvious that this desirable state of affairs can only be brought about by other countries refusing to admit them. This common-sense view has been adopted by all other European countries, except Portugal, which has practically no immigration at all, and can scarcely, therefore, be said to count; by all our principal colonies, notably, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and Canada; by the great Republic of the United States, and in a general sense by nearly every civilized nation throughout the world. Those of our colonies which have not prohibitory statutes, have the power, and use it too, of passing restraining laws from time to time as need requires, which effectually meet the purpose for which they are enacted. All through Europe there are either laws prohibiting the admission of undesirable aliens, or the police regulations and local customs render their continued residence impossible. Even the well-to-do Englishman who goes abroad, for no other purpose than to spend his money, finds himself compelled, should he remain in one place for any length of time, to contribute, in all sorts of ways, to the taxes of the country in which he resides. Rightly so too, since he enjoys the benefit of the protection which the State affords to him. In particular instances this rule may seem to press hardly on individuals, since in Germany, for instance, even an Englishwoman who gives a few lessons in her native tongue is compelled to pay a tax upon her earnings, a tax in some cases so large as to make the pittance she obtains hardly worth the earning. Yet those aliens who are sent to us from other countries—I speak now of the destitute and unfit—contribute nothing to our taxes, nothing to our national welfare, nothing to our national defence; they take everything and give nothing in return, even worse than nothing, since their habits and their customs exercise a most injurious effect upon the English community with whom they come in contact.

What then can be urged against England following the example of other countries in this matter? Nothing but a mere sentiment that she is a country free and open to all, and that all who will should find a refuge upon her hospitable shores. This is a sentiment worthy of all honour, but hospitality may be carried too far, and in this instance it is not a question of its exercise, but of its abuse. There is a homely maxim that "Charity begins at home," and if this be true of individuals it is no less true of nations. The first duty of the father of a household is towards his own family. He must not give bread to others while his own children are starving. He must not give shelter to the stranger, and drive his sons and daughters out into the cold. In the same way, the first duty of a nation is to its own kith and kin. It must not open its arms to the surplus population of other lands, while its own people are clamouring in vain for work. Yet this is the case, and while every day destitute aliens are pouring in, Englishmen are driven from the land of their birth to make room for them. Speaking last year at Liverpool, upon the subject of our rapidly-increasing population, Lord Derby is reported to have said that "Emigration is the only palliative." On all subjects connected with population Lord Derby is a great authority; but of what avail, I would ask him, is it to recommend emigration as a panacea for our social ills, when for every hundred of our people taken away, a leak remains behind by which thousands more of an immeasurably inferior calibre come pouring in, by whom the conditions of existence are made harder than before, and the standard of comfort and decency in the home-life of our people is infinitely lowered? As illustrative of this it may be mentioned that at Leeds, where there is a very large and increasing foreign colony, some £500 was spent in 1887 in emigrating English children to Canada; and evidence was given before the Sweating Committee to the effect that one day a party of 500 emigrants, mostly young men in the full prime of their health and vigour, sailed out of Tilbury Docks, and at the same time another vessel, having on board 700 foreigners, came in. Truly, we are an eccentric nation!

It was George Cruikshank who in allegory drew a map of England with a board on a pole stuck in the centre, and on it the following notice to Europe, "Rubbish may be shot here." It was a caricature, and like all caricatures subject to exaggeration, but it contained within it the germs of a great truth. But even Cruikshank little dreamed that these people would ever arrive here at the rate of 40,000 and 50,000 per annum. Had he done so the notice would rather have run, "No admittance." "Oh," but I hear some say, "you would check this influx, but what of the people we emigrate to other countries?" I would answer that there is no just or fair comparison to be drawn between the people we send away, chiefly young and able-bodied men, and the wretched, under-sized, destitute immigrants we gain in exchange. As things are at present all schemes of emigration and colonization, however well-meaning, are beside the mark. We are drawing out of the barrel and pouring in at the top. More than that, we are drawing out good wine and pouring in bad. It is idle to talk of reprisals, because, as I have already pointed out, other countries have taken steps to guard against this evil. No other civilized nation will take our paupers, our criminals, our lunatics, our outcasts. Why then, in the name of common sense, should we be compelled to take theirs?

Many attempts have been made to confuse this simple issue. Many red herrings have been drawn across the track. It has been said, without one jot or tittle of evidence, that this demand for some moderate measure of restriction, veils behind it a desire to check foreign immigration altogether. Nothing could be farther from the truth. No objection can be urged against foreign immigration as a whole, but only that part of it which exercises an injurious effect upon our own people. There are, for instance, at the present time many foreigners in England employed in different professions and vocations, as teachers of languages, clerks, waiters, cooks, artisans, and so forth. These are in no sense an evil, for they supply a felt want, and are decent and cleanly in their habits and mode of living. Many of them are gradually absorbed into our national life, and become good and useful members of the community. The skilled labourer, the decent artisan, the man with brains to work, or with money to spend, is always welcome to our shores.

Such were the Huguenots. They had not much money, perhaps, but they brought with them something more precious than mere wealth,—the brain, the bone, the muscle, and the manufacturing talent of France. They introduced into England arts and manufactures hitherto unknown, and they added to the lustre of their adopted country by contributing to the science and the literature of the day. They were in fact the fine fleur of the French nation.

A similar influx was that of the Flemings, which took place at an earlier period of England's history. The Flemings, who introduced into our country the finer kind of weaving, first came to England during the reign of Edward III. The weavers of England were then unable to produce any of the better kinds of cloth, and the difficulties and expense of having to send abroad whenever any material was required superior to the coarse home-made product were necessarily great. Under these circumstances, it was obviously a wise policy of the English king to induce the Flemish weavers to come over to England, and to bring their looms with them. The high wages offered, and the prospect held out of ample employment, soon brought large numbers. A like policy was pursued by several of the other English kings who reigned during the period which elapsed between the death of Edward III. and the accession of Edward VI., and there was from time to time a considerable influx of skilled artisans of all classes. In the reign of Edward VI. it appears however that public opinion had veered round. The influx of Flemings and of foreigners generally had become so considerable, that there was a general agreement on the part of the native-born population that it was no longer necessary to hold out inducements to foreign craftsmen, since their presence in large numbers destroyed the demand for good English work, and acted detrimentally upon the interests of English tradesmen. Accordingly we find the citizens of London petitioning the Privy Council to put a stop to this foreign influx, but the only result appears to have been that an estimate, or census, was taken of all the foreigners then resident in London.

One must not infer, however, from the case of the Flemings that the advent of the foreigner was always welcome, or that the outcry against him in the reign of Edward VI. was a new thing. The history of the alien in Great Britain has yet to be written, and space does not permit of its being dwelt upon to any great extent here. Yet in looking back upon the legislative enactments of the Plantagenets and early Tudor kings, which have been briefly referred to elsewhere,[3] one cannot but be struck at the way in which popular opinion—of which these acts were doubtless the outcome—wavered on this subject. The generous treatment accorded to the Flemings and other skilled foreign craftsmen who came to England from time to time contrasts strangely with the harshness with which foreigners were treated at other times. In 1155, for instance, there was an anti-foreign outcry, and many foreigners—in fact all that could be found—were first plundered of their worldly goods, and then banished from the kingdom. Later on they were allowed to return, though still compelled to suffer certain disabilities. At one time the popular prejudice against foreigners was so great that their lives and property were always in danger, and they suffered much unfair treatment. The wise policy of Edward III. removed many of these disabilities, and a special Act was passed in the reign of Richard II. by which they were relieved still more. These Acts were those rather of the king and the upper classes than of the common people, among whom the animus against the foreigner was still so strong that that bulwark of English liberty, trial by jury, was to the alien of no avail, since any charge brought against him, whether true or false, almost invariably resulted in his conviction by a British jury. To do away with this injustice the Enactment of 1430 was passed, which provided that an alien, if he so wished, might be tried by a mixed jury, of whom half were to be Englishmen and the other half foreigners. This singular Statute remained in force until 1870, when the Naturalization Act of that year abolished the privilege of the alien to claim a mixed jury. This Act also repealed all previous Acts except the now well-known Act of 6 & 7 William IV. cap. II., which provides for the registration of aliens, and to which further allusion will be made later on.

Harsh and unnecessary as some of the enactments which were directed against aliens during the reigns of the Plantagenet kings appear to us now, we may congratulate ourselves on the fact that even in the reigns of the Plantagenet kings our Statute Book was never disgraced by such an unjust measure as the French Droit d'Aubaine, which confiscated to the Crown the whole of the property of an alien, thus leaving him destitute in a foreign country. This Statute was repealed in 1791. It was revived by the Code Napoleon, but only for a brief space, and was finally abolished the year after Napoleon's downfall at Waterloo. The Droit d'Aubaine was of considerable antiquity, having been doubtless modelled on the alien laws of ancient Athens, under which similar confiscations of the property of an alien took place, though, in spite of the severity of their laws, the Athenians always welcomed the foreign craftsmen and the artists and skilled workmen of other nationalities. In Rome under the Republic somewhat similar laws to those of Athens existed against the alien, but with the Empire all disabilities were swept away, and Rome gladly welcomed all who ministered to her luxuries and to her pleasures.

It is hardly necessary to say that no unprejudiced person would desire England to revert to the harsh measures of the Plantagenet and Tudor kings, still less to stain her Statute Book by such a measure as the Droit d'Aubaine, however great might be the provocation. Yet the memory of those acts need not prevent us from considering dispassionately, and with due regard to the changed circumstances of our age and country, the advisability of passing some wise and judicious measure for the sifting of alien immigration at the present time. The objection to all the measures to which allusion has been made is, that they were directed against foreigners simply because they were foreigners, and not for the reason their presence militated to any considerable extent against the well-being of the English community, and certainly not because they added to overcrowding, to destitution, or to disease. The Flemings and the Huguenots have their parallels to-day in the foreign teachers of languages, in the French cooks and milliners, in the German clerks, cabinet-makers, and waiters; in the Italian cooks, manufacturers of Venetian glass, &c.; in the skilled craftsmen of whatever nationality who arrive upon our shores. Against these no reasonable objection can be urged. They are useful members of the community, we gain by their presence among us, and their advent is a welcome one. But it cannot be seriously contended that the Flemings and the Huguenots have their parallel in the destitute and degraded immigrants from East of Europe, or the vagrant and vicious aliens from the South. Whatever our sympathies towards these people may be, there is every reason why we should not welcome them here. As things are, these new arrivals add in a manner altogether out of proportion to their numbers to the miseries of our poor in the congested districts of our great towns, to which they invariably drift. There are many practical ways in which we can show our sympathy with the persecuted Russian Jews if we wish to do so, notably by combining to divert the stream of immigration from our own densely populated little island, and by helping the would-be immigrants to move on to some new land beyond the seas. This we may do; but for their own sake, and for the sake of our people, we should try to prevent them from coming here.

With an imperfect knowledge of the facts we are hardly in a position to judge of the action which the Russian Government has seen fit to take against its Jewish subjects. On the surface it certainly appears that a great wrong has been done, a wrong which is also a blunder, but we must remember that we have not yet heard what there is to be urged on the other side. We can scarcely be expected to credit without adequate proof all the hearsay tales of Russian oppression. Isolated instances do not suffice. If a Russian were to make a collection of all the instances of murder, outrage, and misery which unhappily still stain the annals of our law-courts, he would hardly present to his compatriots a faithful picture of English life. Is there not just a possibility that we may be condemning Russia on somewhat similar evidence? It is said,—one cannot say how truly,—that the system of usury and extortion practised by many of the Russian Jews upon the peasantry has, in a large measure, tended to bring about the present state of things. Again we are told that the increase of Russian Jews has of late been so rapid that there is a danger, if things go on at the present rate, of the orthodox Slavs being swamped by a section of the population little in sympathy with the Government under which they live. These are some of the reasons, we are informed, which have led to the adoption of harsh measures against the Russian Jews. On the surface such reasons seem very inadequate, and with the measures which are said to flow from them no right-thinking man can have sympathy. For her difficulties with her Jewish population Russia has only herself to thank. The long years of oppression to which they have been subjected have degraded them, until their ignorance and dislike of their masters have become a danger to the State. Anything which savours of a religious persecution is abhorrent to all liberal-minded men; and if it be true, as alleged, that the present sufferings of the Russian Jews are inflicted upon them because of their faith, then our sympathies with the victims of such an unholy persecution cannot be too great. At the same time we are not in a position to dictate to Russia. Some zealous and well-meaning people tried the experiment at a meeting at the Mansion House last year, with the result that they were virtually told to mind their own business. The "protest," however, had one unfortunate consequence. The repressive measures were made more drastic than before, and the unfortunate Hebrews, naturally interpreting the sympathy shown to them as an inducement to come here, have since arrived upon our hospitable shores in greater numbers than before. In support of this opinion may be quoted the following paragraph which appeared in the supplement of the St. Petersburger Zeitung last June.

"We hear that a charitable association has been formed, with the praiseworthy object of assisting the Russian Jews out of their present miserable situation. An opportunity is to be given them of emigrating to those countries where sympathy has been publicly expressed for them. The first thing this association intends doing is to send the Jews by Libau and Riga to London, where public opinion has clearly enough shown itself to be on their side. For this purpose four steamers are to be chartered to carry these Jews to the banks of the Thames at the lowest possible rates, and it is expected that it will take the whole of the summer to carry out this plan. The philanthropists in St. Petersburg hope that the friends of the Jews in England will give them their hearty support, and help to provide for these poor creatures when they arrive in London."

This is taking us at our word with a vengeance! Surely for the sake of these poor immigrants themselves it is high time that some means should be found to prevent their arriving here in such numbers. The miseries which many of the Russian Jews undergo in the East End of London and some of our large provincial cities must be as bad as those which they have endured in the inhospitable land from whence they came. In some cases their lot here must be even worse. Quite recently an instance of the sufferings which these poor creatures undergo came to light in Whitechapel. Adolphe Cashneer, a Russo-Jewish immigrant, was summoned before the coroner of East London[4] to give evidence as to the death of his infant child. The man, who was unable to speak a word of English, stated that he had been out of work for six weeks—he worked in the cheap tailoring trade—that the mother had received no medical attention except a midwife at confinement, no food but three-halfpennyworth of milk a day, and a share of a fowl which lasted them five days, and for which the husband had pawned his trousers. The deceased child had no clothes but a napkin to cover it. It lived only one week and then died of starvation! The doctor in describing the wretched room where these poor people lived, said there were no sheets or blankets on the bed, the mother had no proper clothing, and there was no food beyond some sour milk in a dirty glass, quite unfit for human consumption. A more impressive object-lesson of the evils of our present system of unchecked and pauper immigration than that unfolded in this tale of sordid misery it would be impossible to conceive. And yet this is by no means an isolated case. Dr. Dukes stated that he continually came across such cases. He went on to say in his evidence at the inquest:—"I continually come across such cases as this.... The poverty in the East End is terrible." Instances like this cannot but strengthen the argument against admitting destitute aliens here. Strangers in a strange land, these miserable new-comers find themselves worse off than they were before. They are not themselves benefited, and the only result is that they intensify the awful struggle for existence which is going on daily and hourly among the poor in our large cities.

It has been said that to limit this influx would be to endanger that right of asylum which has ever been one of England's boasts and glories. It is not so. Were a careful and judicious measure passed for the sifting of alien immigration, it would be quite possible to insert a clause, similar to that which has been inserted in the new American Act, which runs as follows:—"That nothing in this Act shall be construed to apply to or exclude persons convicted of a political offence, notwithstanding the said political offence may be designated as a 'felony, crime, infamous crime, or misdemeanour involving moral turpitude,' by the laws of the land whence he came, or by the court convicting."

Such is the law in the "land of the free." England, no less than America, is the home of civil and religious liberty She has great and glorious traditions; they are illustrated by her treatment of the Walloons, the Huguenots, the slave-traffic, and all political refugees from time immemorial. Yet in the past she has not hesitated from time to time to pass such laws as need and occasion required. To this the Statute Book is a witness,[5] and her traditions would not be reversed because in the present day she found it necessary, in the interests of her own people, to adopt some means for checking this latter-day invasion. What is asked for is not an offensive but a defensive measure.

England has gained much in the past by her generous treatment of political refugees. But it must be apparent to every thoughtful man that the question assumes a very different aspect when we have to deal not with the influx of a few thousands of skilled workmen at isolated periods of our history, but with the invasion of some thirty or forty thousand every year of the class which under ordinary circumstances would go to fill the poor-houses and penitentiaries of Eastern Europe. Such a constant pouring in of unskilled labour of necessity disorganizes the labour market, and compels the displacement of English workmen who are unable to compete on equal terms with rivals such as these. The results are plainly shown in the trades and districts chiefly affected. These immigrants undo by their presence in our midst all the good which our philanthropists and social reformers have been labouring for ages to create. It may be true that in the strictly legal sense of the word comparatively few of them are paupers, since, as Lord Derby has recently expressed it, "they are quite able to make their own living." But what a "living" is it? The living of a savage or a dog, and certainly not one which we like to see Englishmen or Englishwomen degraded to, or forced into competition with, in the land that gave them birth. Boast as we may of the succour which we are ever ready to afford to the oppressed ones of the earth, it is obvious that we must first look to the interests of our own people. Our supineness in this matter has allowed the evil to grow to a magnitude it ought never to have reached, and thus the difficulties surrounding it have been greatly increased. The Government of the day will incur a grave responsibility if they do not speedily devote their earnest attention to this matter.

There are signs all around us that before long something will have to be done. At a time when the country is being convulsed with conflicts of labour against capital, and when thousands of our wage-earning classes are looking in vain for work; at a time when the condition of the poor in our great cities is engaging the active attention of our philanthropists, and the columns of the press teem with appeals for the aid of the homeless and suffering; this ever-increasing addition to the ranks of our unemployed, with its inevitable tendency to aggravate our social evils, is calculated to inspire feelings of alarm and dismay among all those who have the welfare of our people seriously at heart.

[CHAPTER II.]
THE INCREASE AND EXTENT.

That the immigration of destitute and undesirable aliens takes place on a large and increasing scale, is a fact placed beyond the reach of controversy or denial. The Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into the subject, reported that the immigration of aliens into this country had been greater since the date of the last Census (1881) than at any recent period of our history; an opinion which they arrived at from the evidence of a number of eminent authorities. Mr. John Burnett, Labour Correspondent of the Board of Trade, who was specially deputed in August 1887 to make inquiries into the Sweating System in the East End of London, reported that matters were much worse there of late years, because of "the enormous influx of pauper foreigners," an opinion which he arrived at from his own personal observation, and from the statements of the people themselves. Mr. Burnett's report was corroborated in its main features by Dr. Ogle, whose work it is to prepare the statistical part of the Census, and whose opinion on all such matters stands deservedly high.

Let us also take the opinion of people who have lived in the invaded districts, and who can therefore speak from practical experience. Mr. Henry Dejonge, a cigar-maker, who had lived in the East End for fifty years, said before the Immigration Committee:—"The increase has taken place since the Russian War of 1856. Since then it has been gradual, but sure; there has been a very large increase the last eight years.... In a certain street in Whitechapel the shops are mostly kept by foreigners. In Wentworth Street, out of eighty-five shops, there are forty-eight in the hands of Russian and Polish Jews." Mr. Simmons, a dress-trimming maker, said that he was born in Spitalfields, and could date back in his recollection, "and where there were then two Jews, there are forty now, or even more—say sixty. I know a street which when I was a boy there was not a Jew in, and now it is completely full of them." The agent to the Whitechapel Committee of the Charity Organization Society (Mr. Thurston) was of opinion that the population in the district of Whitechapel would be half foreign and half British. "Some of the streets that were occupied by British workpeople have been entirely cleared, and are now occupied by Jews." The Rev. H. A. Mason, Vicar of All Saints, Stepney, a well-known and devoted clergyman, who has laboured for the last eighteen years among the lowest of the London poor, reckons that there has been an increase of 1000 foreign Jews in his parish during the last seven years, and this at the sacrifice of the British population. He also testified to the ill-feeling existing between them and the British part of the population who found themselves being thus ousted. The Bishop of Bedford, Dr. Billing, referring to Spitalfields, where he had laboured for twenty years, said:—"I know that during the last four years whole streets have become entirely occupied by Jews, foreign Jews, where there was not a Jew before." The Report of the Committee of Guardians of the Whitechapel Union stated in 1887:—"There can be no doubt that the number of foreign residents—chiefly very poor—in the Whitechapel Union and adjacent districts, is largely on the increase, and that each year sees some new locality, or localities, invaded by the foreigner and abandoned by the English poor. No statistics are needed in support of this statement, since it is obvious to every one who knows the East End. It is not a mere redistribution of poor, and the substitution of one class for another in a certain locality; it is the immigration into the district of a class of foreign poor, who seem heretofore to have existed on the mere border-land of civilization, who are content with any shelter, and to share that shelter with as many of their class as can be crowded into it."

A mass of similar evidence might be given by experts whose opinions are above contradiction or cavil. But it is unnecessary to multiply witnesses. A visit to East London will give one the best of all possible evidence—that of one's own eyes. In Whitechapel, the increase during the last ten years has been enormous. Whole streets are now filled with foreign Jews, notably Old Montague Street, Chicksand Street, Booth Street, Hanbury Street, and the teeming courts and alleys adjoining. It is easy to imagine oneself to be in a foreign city. Strange habits and customs, and foreign faces surround one; and a foreign language is heard on every side. There are multitudes of little eating-houses with Hebrew letters on the windows, signifying thus "Kosher"—meat prepared in the Jewish fashion—is there supplied. There are foreign Jewish tradesmen who drive a thriving trade in catering to the peculiar wants of this foreign population, supplying every need, even down to "smoked beef and sausages from Warsaw," a delicacy which the Polish and Russian Jew especially affects. There is even a foreign newspaper half printed in "Yiddish," and the sentiments expressed therein are often of the most dangerous order. On the walls and other available spaces, one sees advertisements in Yiddish, and enterprising tradesmen go in for Yiddish handbills. There are Yiddish clubs and gambling-hells, and little Jewish lodging-houses without end. In fact everywhere the signs of this foreign invasion are dominant, to the complete—or almost complete—exclusion of the English element. That particular quarter of London is like the Ghetto of a continental city.

The Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police stated in his last Report that "a growing number of such passengers (viz. destitute foreigners) arrive in London, chiefly on board vessels running under the German flag." After noticing that by one line plying between Hamburg and Tilbury, no less than 4000 such passengers, 80 per cent. of whom appeared to be quite destitute, arrived in 1890, as compared with 2390 in 1889, the Chief Commissioner notices that "from 4000 to 5000 additional arrived in London in 1890," and adds, "Though some of these only pass through London on their way to America, it may be taken that the majority of them settle there." His conclusion is:—"The police reports unanimously state that there has been a marked increase of late in the number of arrivals in this country." This report is dated 17th January, 1891.

The increase is by no means confined to London alone. The Chief Constable at Manchester reported (29th December, 1890), as the result of inquiries of several shopkeepers and housekeepers from Poland and Russia who have resided in Manchester for some years, that "all are unanimously of opinion that the numbers of their countrymen who have immigrated into the city have increased during the last few months." He reports farther (10th January, 1891), "that there are said to be 15,000 to 16,000 Jews in Manchester, and of their number it has been estimated that at least 70 per cent. are said to be Russian Poles. No correct information can be obtained as to the proportionate number of the whole who are in destitute circumstances, or of the total increase in the numbers of these classes which has actually taken place in the year 1890; but there can be no doubt that the Jewish people have very largely increased in numbers in this city during the last few years."

The Liverpool Chief Constable reported (January 1891):—"There is no doubt, as far as can be ascertained, that the immigration of destitute Polish and Russian Jews into this city has somewhat increased during the past twelve months." The Chief Constable at Glasgow reports, on the authority of the honorary treasurer of the Jewish Board of Guardians, that about 200 poor Polish immigrants arrive in that city yearly. There are a good many foreign Jews settled in Glasgow.

In Leeds, the Chief Constable reported (December 1890), that there is a continuous immigration of destitute aliens—Polish and Russian Jews. A member of the Jewish Board of Guardians informed him "that the number of Jewish immigrants arriving in Leeds during the last twelve months would, in his opinion, be about 2000 persons"; but on this there appears to be a difference of opinion.

Leeds is a place which calls for more than a mere passing notice, since it is probably more directly interested in the question of alien immigration than any other provincial town in England. The incoming tide flows on unchecked, and helps to swell the poorer population of Leeds to an alarming extent. In a Report of the Sweating System at Leeds, Mr. Burnett, Labour Correspondent to the Board of Trade, wrote:—"As elsewhere these people (the Jews) may be almost said to form a foreign colony in the heart of an English town, and Leeds has now its Jewish quarter just as the East End of London has. They have settled down in a district called the Leylands, and they have taken such complete possession of it, that in the Board School of the locality, 75 per cent. of the children are Jews. The streets in the Leylands are beginning to assume distinctly foreign characteristics. The names above the shops are foreign, and the notices in the windows are printed in Hebrew characters. The words spoken are unintelligible to English ears, and about the race of the children in the streets and the people at the doors there can be no mistake."

More recent evidence is afforded by the Yorkshire Post "The great majority of the arrivals," writes this journal,[6] "are Russian and Polish Jews, who on landing upon English soil, at once move to the centre of the clothing industry, most of them with little or no money in their pockets, many of them without a trade in their hands, and not a few of them trusting for safe dealings to their English vocabulary, which is limited to one word, 'Leeds.' ... It is quite evident that there has been an increase during the present year. The persecution of the Semitic race in Russia has driven immense numbers to seek in this country the hospitable shelter that is denied them in the land of their birth, and a not inconsiderable proportion of them having heard of Leeds as an earthly Paradise for outcasts and wanderers, direct their steps towards the West Riding capital immediately the Hamburg boat lands them at Hull."

Among the evidences of the greater influx into the Jewish colony of Leeds is the increased number of applications for help that are being received almost every week by the Jewish Board of Guardians, and by those who have the control of the relief funds connected with the various Hebrew congregations of the town.

No official return is kept of the number of foreign Jews who come into Leeds, or of those who leave it; absolutely accurate information as to the exact number of the foreign colony in Leeds is therefore not to be obtained. But the Report of the Board of Trade, issued in the spring of 1891, estimates the Jewish population at 10,000. There are those, however, who put the number higher than that, the estimate going up as high as 15,000, or even beyond it. Be that as it may, it is certain that there has been a very large increase in 1891. How great is this increase is shown by the following quotation from a circular recently issued to the subscribers of the Leylands Gospel Temperance Mission, signed by the Superintendent of the Mission. The Leylands is a district of Leeds. The circular says:—"Careful inquiries have been made into the great changes rapidly taking place in the Leylands, owing to the enormously increased proportion of Jews settling there. As a result of this, the Byron Street Wesleyan Chapel has been given up and sold to the Jews, the Roman Catholic Chapel is also given up, and the English and Irish portion of the district is removing. A carefully-prepared estimate has been given of the changes during the past two years, as follows:—In 1889 there were in the Leylands 1300 houses. Of these 621 were occupied by Jews. In 1890, 765 were occupied by Jews, an increase in one year of 144 houses taken by Jews. At present, out of 1300 houses, 900 are occupied by Jews (between 30 and 40 of them as workshops), only leaving about 400 houses in the district occupied by English and Irish."

To return to London. In addition to the facts already quoted, we have the evidence of the Jewish Board of Guardians, evidence surely above suspicion, since that body is by no means prone to exaggerate the evil of destitute immigration. In the Annual Report of the Board for 1890, it is stated that the total number of cases of foreign Jews "entertained" during that year amounted to 3534. Taking ten years, we find that in 1880, 2588 cases were relieved, exclusive of Loan and Industrial Departments, at a cost of £18,354; in 1890, 3351 cases were relieved, exclusive of Loan and Industrial Departments, at a cost of £21,648. The total of absolute gifts in 1880 was £5528; in 1890, it had run up to £10,776, or nearly double. Moreover, the Emigration Committee of the Board testify to a decrease in the number of people assisted to emigrate in 1890. They admit that, owing to the United States Immigration Laws, they have to use the greatest circumspection to prevent any cases being assisted that are likely to be refused admission on the other side. The Russian Relief Fund Committee also admit that owing to persecution in Russia they no longer assist Eastern immigrants to return home even in cases where it is desirable to send men back to look after their families. They state that a "large number" of refugees have been assisted by them to settle here since 1882, and that they succeed in gaining a livelihood in London.

From special inquiries which have been instituted by the Association for preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens, it is computed that during the spring, summer, and autumn months of the present year (1891) some 500 a week of these alien immigrants have arrived at the port of London alone. Of these nearly 80 per cent. appeared to be in a destitute condition. It is to be noted that these figures do not include those who are stated to be provided with through tickets to other countries; and though some may possibly return again to the land from whence they came, the probability is that most of them remain to glut the already overcrowded labour market in the East of London. A few, generally of the least destitute class, drift on to the manufacturing centres in the North of England; but the alien population of the provincial cities is mainly recruited from other ports—Hull, Leith, Grimsby, and Southampton.

We now come to the last link in this chain of evidence as to the increase and extent of alien immigration—the official returns of the Board of Trade. I have purposely delayed considering these returns until the last, as they are in many ways incomplete and unsatisfactory. Still as they are so frequently appealed to by those who seek to minimize this evil, one must refer to them also. As an instance of the way in which they have been kept, it may be stated at the outset that, excepting as to London and Hull, the information has only been obtained from the various ports since the 1st of May 1890, and only as to London and Hull is a comparison possible with the previous year. Still even on this unsatisfactory basis we find that 29,885 aliens arrived from the Continent, at twenty-one British ports, between May and December 1890, and at two others in the whole year, not intending to proceed to America; whilst the arrivals in London were 4400 more in 1890 than in 1889, and in Hull 1320 higher.[7] And this in spite of the fact that nearly 1,000,000 persons were maintained under the Poor Law in Great Britain during 1890! The returns issued by the Board of Trade for 1891 are even more alarming. The total of aliens "not stated to be en route to America" who arrived in the United Kingdom during the ten months ending the 31st of October, 1891, amounted to no less than 32,877.

These figures appear upon the showing of the official returns, and taking them as they stand, how people, however optimistic, can derive any consolation from them, it is not easy to imagine. But there is no doubt that were these returns actually complete, carefully prepared, and accurately checked, it would be found that the number of aliens who arrived upon our shores would be very much in excess of the number given.

The actual numerical work of compiling the returns is done at the Board of Trade; but the collection of material is directed and superintended by the Commissioners of Customs; and the efficiency of the work turns upon the way in which the Alien Act of William IV. is administered.

Summing up briefly the chief provisions of that Act, which are given in extenso elsewhere,[8] it will be seen that—(a) The master of a vessel arriving from a foreign port is to declare in writing to the chief officer of the Customs at the port of arrival, the number of the aliens who are on board, or have landed from his vessel; and to give the names, rank, occupations, and description of such aliens, so far as he shall be informed thereof; and if a master omits to make such declaration, or wilfully makes a false one, he is liable to a penalty. (b) Every alien on arrival is to declare in writing to the chief officer of Customs at the port of debarkation, his name, description, etc., and every such officer is to register the declaration, and deliver to the alien a certificate, which is to be given up to the chief officer of customs at the port of departure, when the alien leaves the country. (c) The chief officer of Customs at every port is to transmit to one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State—in practice the Home Secretary—a copy of the master's declaration, a copy of the certificate given to the alien, and the certificate which the alien gives up on leaving the country.

This sounds all very well in theory, and there is no doubt that if the provisions of the Act were carried out to the letter, we should be in possession of what we have not now—actual statistics, which must precede legislation. But the question is, what about the practice? Mr. Lindsey, the chief of the Long-room at the London Custom-house, told the Immigration Committee in 1888 that the Act had long since fallen into desuetude; and that only at the ports of London and Hull did the masters of vessels, at that date, report the number of aliens on board, or make any declaration whatever, while no means at all existed for checking the lists supplied. Indeed, it would be quite possible, he considered, for vessels to land "thousands of aliens" without the Customs authorities being able to find it out. No declarations were made or certificates given to aliens on arrival, or received from them on departure, as directed by sec. vi. of the Alien Act of William IV. It is evident, therefore, that up to that date the Act had been allowed to become practically obsolete.

After the Immigration Committee had used their Report in 1889, in which they recommended that measures should be taken to secure with more frequency and greater accuracy an estimate of the amount of alien immigration into the United Kingdom, tardy steps were taken to obtain certain statistics; but it was not till May 1890, and after questions had been frequently asked in either House of Parliament, that alien lists were taken at ports other than London and Hull. Even now, though an attempt has been made to procure lists of aliens from a considerable number of ports, yet on the face of the monthly returns the lists are, admittedly, very imperfect. The lists received from Dover, Folkestone, and Harwich are only partial; while other ports of considerable importance, such as Lynn, Newhaven, Southampton, and many of the western ports, are omitted altogether. In all cases the masters of the vessels are perfectly able to shirk their duties if so inclined; so that not only are the returns very incomplete, but even the statistics given are very untrustworthy.

I have the best authority for making this charge as to the untrustworthy nature of the statistics given, which is so strenuously denied by those who put their faith in the official returns. My authority is a letter written to me on the 23rd April, 1891, by the Secretary of the Customs, in which he says:—"I am directed to acquaint you that the Department does not undertake in any way to check the returns of aliens made by the captains of the vessels, under the requirements of the Act of William IV.; and that the Customs Boarding Staff, as at present arranged, could not undertake such a duty without additional expense to the public, even if directions to that effect should be received from the Government."

This is perfectly natural and reasonable as coming from the Customs. The letter is merely quoted here to show that it is impossible to place faith in the present returns. It practically admits the whole contention: the alien lists are unchecked, and therefore unsatisfactory. A glance at the way in which they are prepared will show how unsatisfactory they are.

As we have already seen, the provisions of the Alien Act of William IV. have been allowed to fall into disuse, and the penalties for neglect of carrying them out are never enforced. Hitherto even such returns as have been sent in, have been loosely and carelessly prepared. In some cases masters of ships have neglected to render any returns of the aliens on board their vessels; in others, the duty, instead of being performed by the captain or master of the vessel, as the Act requires, has been delegated to some inferior officer, with the result that the work has been performed in a hasty and perfunctory manner. But, however carelessly these lists are prepared, the Custom House authorities accept them just as they are, and no provision has been made for checking them. It is obvious that statistics prepared in such a manner are of no great value. Yet it is upon the authority of such returns as these that we are asked to disbelieve the evidence of our own eyes, and to admit that the matter is not of sufficient urgency to claim the attention of the Government.

With regard to the steps which the Board of Trade are said to be taking to ensure more accurate statistics, it was stated by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach last session that in future the number of aliens on board the incoming vessels would be every now and then counted, and comparisons made with the master's returns. "Every now and then" is very vague; and until a check is systematically and regularly imposed upon the number of alien passengers on every ship arriving at all the ports, we cannot be sure of obtaining accurate returns. This vague promise on the part of the President of the Board of Trade was made—it should be noted—after a prolonged correspondence had taken place between that Department and the Association for Preventing the Immigration of Destitute Aliens. The Association, on the strength of the letter from the Secretary of the Customs, already quoted, had asked the permission of the Board of Trade—as the returns were admittedly unchecked—for its agent to be allowed, at the Association's expense, to go on board the incoming vessels for the purpose of checking the returns rendered by the masters. This request was met by non possumus[9]; and the Board of Trade wrote to say that though they had "no reason to believe that the returns hitherto received have been in fact inaccurate, arrangements have been made for a further check to be applied to the returns in future by the officers of the Customs when on board the ships." How far these vague promises given on the part of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach in the House of Commons, and by the Department in the letter quoted, have been redeemed, it is impossible to say. The promise of a "further check" is not more reassuring, than Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's "every now and then," especially when we bear in mind that it had been admitted that hitherto there had been absolutely no check at all. All that one knows for certain is that up to the present no action has been taken against the masters or owners of any ships, if the lists have been found to be incorrect.

Such then is a sketch of the way in which the Government figures are obtained, and of the efforts which have been made to secure their greater accuracy.

In compiling the alien lists in the future, some more definite information should also be forthcoming as to the means, nationality, and destination of the immigrants. The distinction "en route to America" is altogether inadequate for practical purposes. As matters stand, it is the only clue afforded us for judging which of the immigrants are merely birds of passage, or which come to settle here. Of course some of those who are "not stated to be en route to America" return again to the Continent; but against that unknown and altogether hypothetical number, may fairly be set the incomplete nature of the returns, and the practice so generally followed in preparing the alien lists of counting two children as one adult. As most of the immigrants against whom complaint is chiefly made do not come here alone, but with their families—and often large families—this is a point to be noted in considering the actual numerical value of the Board of Trade returns. Therefore, in making a rough estimate, I do not think I shall be far wrong if I consider the number of aliens classed in the Board of Trade returns as "not being en route to America," as practically representing about the number of those who remain here.

As matters stand, it is of course at present impossible to give the exact number; but such an estimate would be approximately correct. Nevertheless, in a letter to the Times in the month of August last, an official of the Board of Trade, writing under the nom de guerre of "Facts," did not hesitate to charge me with "attempted misrepresentation," and "an intention to create prejudice," because I estimated that the number of aliens quoted in the official returns as "not being en route to America," would probably represent about the number of those who come here to settle. The animus displayed in this letter was doubtless engendered by the remembrance of a previous epistolary duel. Opinions may differ as to the importance to be attached to this question of alien immigration; they may differ also as to the value of the Board of Trade returns; but however this may be, to write letters under a feigned name to the papers, deliberately accusing one's opponent of bad faith, is a method of conducting or prolonging a controversy happily rare. Though you may disagree with another man's views, you have no right to accuse him of dishonesty because he happens to differ from you.

After the correspondence in the Times took place, a note was appended to the monthly returns issued by the Board of Trade, to the effect that it was not implied "that the aliens not stated to be en route to America, come to this country for settlement; there being in fact a large emigration of foreigners from this country, while many of the aliens arriving from continental ports return again to the Continent." This clears the ground a little, and so far the correspondence cannot be said to have been altogether barren of results. The announcement that there is a large emigration of foreigners from this country is quite gratuitous, however, since we know that the number of aliens who came here en route to America, in the ten months ending 31st October, 1891, amounted to no less than 88,617. That does not affect the matter under consideration in the slightest. But the statement that "many of the aliens arriving from continental ports return again to the Continent" cannot be allowed to pass so easily. How is this conclusion arrived at? No account of foreigners leaving this country for European ports is taken. Of course many return, but who are they? Principally tourists, business men, and the better class of foreigners, against whom no complaint is made. But the great bulk of these are not included in the official returns at all, for the alien lists received from Dover, Folkestone, and Harwich, the three ports to which that class of foreigner generally comes, "show only deck passengers, and persons who on landing proceed by train as third-class passengers."[10] In making a fair estimate, therefore, the better class of foreigner can hardly be taken into consideration at all. This reduces the number of those included in the official returns "who return again to the Continent" to a minimum. Those against whom complaint is made—the residuum, the worthless, and the unfit—remain with us. They could not return to the Continent even if they wished to do so, for the simple reason that they would not be received back again. The law, for instance, in Hamburg is to the effect that no person without means is to land at that port. Hamburg is the great port from which the destitute aliens take ship to England; and therefore it is apparent that though steamship companies may land upon our shores any number of destitute or semi-destitute passengers they please, they dare not take back these same passengers to Hamburg, even if they should wish to go.

Hence, it may be fairly said that this "immigrant emigration," upon which the Board of Trade appears to lay so much stress, is inconsiderable, and at any rate does not touch the class against which complaint is chiefly made. Against it, is to be set the incomplete nature of the lists actually rendered; the fact that the returns are not received from all the ports of the United Kingdom; the untrustworthiness of such as are received; and the practice in preparing them of counting two children to one adult. If all these considerations be balanced against the unknown number of aliens "who return again to the Continent" or move on elsewhere, it certainly cannot be said, that, in estimating the number of those who are stated to be "not en route to America," as the approximate number of those who remain here, one is guilty of exaggeration. If anything, one under-estimates rather than overstates the case.

The fact of the matter is, that all attempts to bolster up the official returns, so long as they are compiled in the present manner, is foredoomed to failure. They are about as unsatisfactory and as inadequate as they can well be, and the distrust with which they are viewed is widespread. The importance of trustworthy official statistics upon this matter can hardly be overrated. So long as they are wanting, there will always be a tendency to exaggerate the evil on the one hand, and to minimize it on the other. Things are bad enough as they are, and there is nothing to be gained by exaggeration. It is greatly to be hoped that the present Government, which has done much in the way of good and useful reform, will take steps to wipe away this reproach—for it is nothing less than a reproach—that, while we have such admirable statistics as to the imports of merchandise, the returns as to the importation of human beings should remain in their present imperfect state.

[CHAPTER III.]
JEWISH IMMIGRATION.

In this chapter I propose to consider the nature of the immigration. At the outset of this particular aspect of the question, it is necessary to make it clear that one is animated by no sentiments of racial or religious animosity. Nothing could be more undesirable than to treat this question as a sectarian question, or to cast any slur upon the Hebrew faith. Nothing would harm the movement more than to create a Judenhetze in England, the home of religious liberty; and therefore whenever the term "Jew" is used throughout this volume, it is used merely to distinguish between other races and nationalities, and from no desire to arouse the odium theologicum. This disclaimer may seem unnecessary to some, but it is important to emphasize it, because if there is one thing hateful to the people of this country, it is religious intolerance; if there is one thing dear to them, it is that liberality which in matters of this kind recognizes no distinctions of faith or creed. It is perfectly true that a large proportion of these undesirable visitors are Jewish by race and religion. But that has nothing to do with the objection to them; it would be just the same if they were Christians, Mahommedans, Buddhists, or sun-worshippers. The objection to them is simply this, that by coming into certain trades and industries in this country, they subject our own people to a constant and unfair competition, which renders it impossible for them to obtain a decent livelihood, and tends directly to militate against their physical, financial, social, and moral well-being. In this matter there is nothing of race, nothing of religion, except so far as this, that we recognize that our first duty should be towards our own nation, our own flesh and blood. Nor is this objection by any means confined to destitute foreign Jews; it holds equally good with regard to vagrant and vicious Italians, idle Hungarians, degraded Chinese, and all the other undesirable specimens of those nationalities which go to make up the motley horde. Still it is idle to deny, in dealing with this question, that though the immigrants are of all nationalities, by far the greater part of those objected to is composed of Russian, Roumanian, and Polish Jews, drawn from the class which goes to swell the poor-houses and penitentiaries of Eastern Europe.

In the previous chapter I have dwelt upon the numbers of this particular class of alien immigrants. It is not necessary, therefore, to go over the same ground again. It suffices to point out that this increase, which would be undoubtedly serious if it were distributed impartially throughout the United Kingdom, assumes a far more formidable aspect when we consider its distribution in particular localities and particular trades. The invading hordes of destitute Jews appear to flock chiefly to our great centres of population, such as the East End of London, and to the great manufacturing cities of the North—Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and some other Scotch towns. Now it is evident that thickly-populated districts do not require immigration, but emigration. It is evident also that the Jew in England is not pastoral, but gregarious. Experts, whose opinions must be listened to with all deference, tell us that many of the foreign Jews have in them the making of good colonists and admirable agriculturalists. It may be so; but those who come here appear to show a marked distaste for agricultural and all pastoral pursuits. No one in England ever comes across a Jewish farmer, or a Jewish agricultural labourer. These immigrants invariably turn their backs on thinly-populated districts; and wherever our people are most closely huddled together, wherever the struggle for existence is keenest, there will the greatest number of foreign Jews be found, with the inevitable result that the conditions of life become even harder than before. It is very necessary to consider the distribution of this unlimited immigration, if we are to form an adequate idea of the injury it works upon our own people.

It is impossible not to feel compassion for these poor Jewish immigrants, when we consider the condition in which the great majority of them land upon our shores. They are often of poor physique, and always scantily clad. In most instances, they are without money at all; others have a few thalers, or roubles, or marks, as the case may be; and of these they are quickly eased by the loafers, touts, and rascals of all descriptions who hang about the docks waiting their arrival, and professing to show them where to lodge for the night, or where to find employment.

One ceases to wonder at the destitute condition in which these unfortunate people arrive on our shores, when we consider the discomforts and miseries which they have to undergo before they arrive at our ports. So far as the Jewish immigrants are concerned, it may be said that fully 70 per cent. of those who have arrived at the port of London during the present year have come from Russia or Poland. The edict in Russia has gone forth for their departure, but before departing it is necessary for them to obtain a passport and other official documents, which have to be paid for at the time of application, and are subsequently required to be shown to the Russian officials before crossing the frontier. I believe that some negotiations are now pending with regard to relaxing the severity of the passport regulations; but at present the possession of a passport is a sine quâ non. To avoid the expense and trouble of obtaining these documents, many subterfuges are resorted to, to enable the Jews to leave unnoticed; but on arriving at the frontier en route to Hamburg, and being found without these documents, many of the emigrants are subjected to the grossest maltreatment and robbery. It is said that many of them have been robbed of every coin, and almost every article they possess, and are sent across the frontier in an absolute state of beggary and destitution. Many cases are known to the officials of the Jewish Charitable Institutions in London, where whole families have had, in consequence of being thus robbed, to tramp on foot through Germany ten or sixteen days, in order to reach Hamburg en route to London. When once they arrive at Hamburg, the departure of these persons is by some mysterious means, which I have been unable to ascertain, directly provided for. It is not an expensive journey, the passage to London from Hamburg being about sixteen shillings English money per head for the adults, and the children come half-price. These are approximately the fares charged by Messrs Perlbach, who do a thriving trade in bringing these people across. I say "approximately," for Messrs Perlbach have met all my requests for information with a non possumus. Of course such a cheap rate does not admit of many comforts. The emigrant has to find himself all food and bedding. In most cases the boats are entirely devoid of sufficient accommodation for passengers; and being under a foreign flag, they do not come under our Board of Trade regulations here.

The accommodation on board the boats plying between Hamburg and London is miserably insufficient; and doubtless it is no better between Hamburg and other English ports. The voyage from Hamburg to London usually occupies from forty to sixty hours, according to the weather; and during the whole of this time these poor people are herded together rather like cattle than human beings. Men, women, and children are crowded together in the stifling atmosphere between the decks; some lying on bundles of foul and dirty rags, others squatting on the bare deck itself. It is a terrible picture of famished and suffering humanity. No one thinks of taking off his clothes during the passage, and few have either the inclination, or the opportunity, to wash themselves or their children. The sanitary arrangements are simply abominable. The following account, given by the special commissioner of a London evening journal, which has done much to bring this evil prominently before the public, and to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness, may with advantage be quoted here. The special commissioner travelled over from Hamburg as a "destitute alien" on board Messrs. Perlbach and Co.'s steamship Minerva. In his report he describes his experience as follows[11]—

"By the time I got on deck darkness had set in, and nearly all my fellow-aliens had stowed away the pocket-handkerchiefs or canvas-bags containing their belongings in one or other of the two holds, which were to form their place of residence for the next two nights at any rate. I saw some scores of eyes peering at me for the first minute or two; then when curiosity as to the new arrival had abated, I sat down in a dark corner and quietly examined my surroundings. The greater portion of the deck was taken up by large boxes covered with sheets of canvas, and extending to a height in some places of perhaps eight or ten feet. On the top of these, and in the narrow passages between them, the emigrants sat or stood, breaking the stillness of the evening with the hollow laugh or clamorous chatter. Most of them were young women, wearing shawls on their heads, and clad in soiled, faded, and torn finery. Some of them were men, young or middle-aged, but so enfeebled and spiritless that one might have fixed their age at nearer seventy than thirty. A few were old women, bent, emaciated, and almost lifeless. All, with few exceptions, were yellow with dirt, and smelt foully.... I thought it to be about time to go and look after my sleeping quarters. There were two places from which to choose. One of these, according to the inscription on the entrance, was constructed to hold thirty-four persons, the other twenty-nine. The German ships are subject to practically no regulations as to space; and I inferred there must be on board about one hundred deck passengers.... I made my way to the larger of the two steerage cabins. When I got to the top of the gangway, the stench which issued from the semi-darkness beneath was pretty nearly unendurable, and it was even worse down-stairs, when blended with the heat from the bodies of the emigrants. But the scene which the place presented was still more disgusting. The apartment was about the breadth of the ship near the narrow end in width, and scarcely so long. In the centre a single oil-lamp was hanging, which threw out a feeble, flickering light. On each side a couple of platforms were erected, one over the other, with about two and a half feet between them, divided into spaces in some places a little over two feet broad, and not divided at all in others. Here men, women, and children were lying on the bare boards partly undressed, some in one direction, some in another. Young men lay abreast of young unmarried women, chatting jocularly, and acting indecently, and young children were witnesses of all that passed. The greater portion of the floor was taken up with boxes, on which such of the emigrants of both sexes as had not been able to obtain the ordinary sleeping accommodation were reclining as best they might."

That was the first night of the voyage; the second is described by the commissioner as follows:—

"My second night's experience in the hold I need say little about; the horrors of the place were increased by the accumulation of filth, which had taken place by the ever-increasing indisposition of the passengers the longer we were at sea.... Through the long weary hours I sat there sleepless, I was only too glad when the light of morning made a promenade possible on deck."

Such are some of the miseries of the journey. It is small wonder then that under such circumstances, when the vessels reach London, these unfortunate people present a most squalid, dirty, and uninviting appearance. The journey is a wretched one; and at the end of it things are no better; for when London is reached, these poor creatures are cast adrift to fight for themselves, in a population already teeming with starving, dying thousands.

The steamers that bring these aliens to London always land them at one of three places—Tilbury Docks, the Upper Pool, or St. Katherine's Docks. Wapping is the worst of the three places of landing. Here the steamers lie out in the middle of the Thames; the passengers are bundled into boats, the watermen in charge of which will endeavour before landing to get as much out of them as they possibly can. They are landed in different places, their luggage is thrown out of the boat, and they find themselves alone in a strange land unable to make known where they wish to go. But they are not left long in their loneliness. A number of human sharks, generally foreign Jews also, surround them, anxious to see in what way they can take advantage of their ignorance and friendlessness. The worst foes that have to be contended against are some of the East End boarding-house keepers. These men will meet the new-comers, address them in "Yiddish," say that they are connected with some of the Jewish charities, and tell them that they must allow their luggage to be collected. When this is done, they get together as many as possible before being stopped by the real agents of the Jewish Homes, and march them off, not to where the unfortunates think they are going, but to some of the boarding-houses in Spitalfields. Arrived there, the aliens undergo a process of sifting. Those who are absolutely destitute, and without money or baggage, from whom there is nothing to be got, are quickly dismissed, and sent in charge of a child to the Poor Jews' Temporary Shelter in Leman Street. But those who have money and baggage are advised to stay a day or two until they can "look about them." Then the fleecing commences. A charge is made of from two shillings to five shillings a week for a wretched shake-down bed; but the lodger has to pay the full week if he only stays one night. Food is charged in proportion. The next morning, as soon as the lodger has finished his breakfast, a man is deputed to go with him in search of employment. This man will tramp his victim all round London, it need scarcely be said with no success; in the evening he will bring him back to the boarding-house, saying they must try again the next day. The following morning the same routine is gone through, and with the same result. For each day's service a charge of five shillings is made. These gross charges are made day after day until the unfortunate individual has nothing left but his luggage. The boarding-house keeper sympathizes with his dupe; he tells him he is not an unkindly man, and will lend him a trifle on his luggage. This little is soon swallowed up in the cost of living, and when it is all gone the boarding-house keeper informs him he is very sorry, but he must have his room for some one else. The man is turned into the street, friendless, penniless, and homeless, and finds himself in very truth a "destitute alien."

Thus such an one becomes in a few weeks precisely in the same plight as those who arrive with literally nothing at all. Of those, said the Bishop of Bedford in his evidence before the House of Lords' Committee, "They almost stand in the market after arrival with barely any clothes to cover them, and without a penny in their pockets." In this veritable slave-market they hang about in droves, waiting for the sweater to come and hire them, which he does sometimes in person, sometimes by means of an agent, and sometimes by means of his wife. (What a terrible type of womanhood must be a sweater's wife!) Of course these poor creatures are at the sweater's mercy. They are ignorant of the country, of its language, of its laws, and are compelled to take any terms he may offer.

To call the place where these transactions are carried on a "slave-market" is perhaps an abuse of terms, since, in a strictly literal sense, nobody buys and nobody sells; but that it is a traffic in human beings cannot be denied. Almost any Sunday morning during the spring, summer, and autumn months, at the corner of Goulston Street, Whitechapel, for instance, may be seen a varying number of men drawn up in a line against the wall. In front of them stands a man who engages—I will not say sells—them to the sweater, who gets his victims to sign a paper, binding them to work for so many weeks and at so much money in the sweating dens. It is a pitiful sight. Most of these men are newly-arrived foreign paupers, chiefly Polish Jews. The boat from Hamburg arrives every Saturday at the docks, and the agent who meets them conveys them to some Jewish shelter where they remain until Sunday morning, when he leads them to this place. Most of them as they stand there have the high boots and fur cap distinctive of the Russian peasant. Want and long service are plainly written on their emaciated forms, and along with these a certain patient and dogged intention of purpose. Often the sweater will give them at first only their food and lodgings, such as it is. The salary given them varies from two to three shillings per week; their food is horrible, so is their lodging. They will work fourteen, sixteen, and eighteen hours a day, and they will sleep in the den in which the work is done. They suffer hunger, cold, heat, and vermin. They are without the help of relations, acquaintances, or protection. They agree to pay back a certain sum if they break their engagement; and as this is impossible for them to do, they remain practically slaves, working for nothing, or next to nothing.

Most of them have to learn a trade at first, during which period they earn nothing, and are glad to submit to any terms the sweater may think fit to impose. The slang term for such persons is "greener," and in many respects the condition of a "greener" is worse than that of a slave. By and by when he has learnt his business, which in the cheap tailoring trade, for instance, would be the machine work, he receives a small wage, from six to seven shillings a week, barely sufficient to maintain existence. As a rule the "greeners" are very quick to learn, and as they progress they earn a little more; but their position is precarious, being liable to be discharged at a moment's notice. The work is precarious too, and the wages are irregularly paid. Sometimes there is nothing to do for weeks and weeks. Their food is of the scantiest, the refuse of fish and a little bread being the principal articles of diet. The length of hours for which they work—I speak now of the cheap tailoring trade—averages from fourteen to fifteen hours a day, or 100 hours a week. The Bishop of Bedford said:—"I have myself seen these poor creatures at work up till two in the morning, and I have found that they were again at work, the same people in the same room, at seven o'clock in the morning." Again he said:—"You can tell work is being done on the Sabbath, by the blinds being drawn. There is no holiday at all." Moreover, the surroundings amid which they work are deplorable and filthy in the extreme. That, however, will be touched upon more fully in a subsequent chapter.

Again, in the cheap boot trade, the "greener" is at first put to work as a "sew-round hand." If he does well at this, in a short time he will proceed to "finishing," and he is advanced to other branches of the work as his proficiency may warrant. The master bootmaker, who in nine cases out of ten was once a "greener" himself, is called a "boot-slosher." The "greener" will generally lodge at the house of the "slosher" who employs him; and as many as sixteen or seventeen of these "greeners" have been known to lodge in his house at the same time. The daily food, as a rule, consists of a piece of hard stale bread, dipped in salad oil. The bread is bought from a barrow in the street, and consists of the stale unsaleable loaves collected from various bakers' shops in the neighbourhood. The "greener" may supplement this possibly with a little weak coffee or cocoa; or, if he wishes to indulge in an unusual extravagance, he will invest in a piece of dried cucumber, pickled in salt and water; or perhaps two or three "greeners," by way of a treat, will go shares in a few Dutch herrings, also pickled in salt. The dried pickled cucumber is known as "Wally-Wally," and a herring is known as a "Deütcher." These articles are sold in large quantities in the East End.

It must not be supposed, however, that these men remain always in this position. When they have learned to speak the language and to know their way about, they will make better terms for themselves. By degrees they gradually get on. After being in the "slosher's" shop for six or eight months, they learn sufficient to enable them to go into the boot manufactories kept by foreigners, and to apply for work to take out in large quantities. By a process of gradual development, the "greener" becomes a "slosher" himself, and in the fulness of time he may be seen walking about the East End, accosting and offering employment to the first batch of recently-arrived immigrants he sees. More probably he will meet them at the railway-station and waterside; or if in a more extensive way of business, he will write to Hamburg to some of the agencies there, stating that he can find work for so many men. When he gets them into his clutches he treats them in precisely the same way as that in which he himself has been treated. Thus does this evil system go on and flourish.

After a time the foreign Jew begins to accumulate money; and though he still continues his frugal diet of "Wally-Wally" and "Deütcher," he launches forth a little in other ways. The long Russian coat is discarded, and with it the Hessian boots and fur cap. He bedizens himself out with a quantity of cheap flashy jewellery, and possibly goes in for mild theatrical amusements. There is a small theatre in a certain small court in Whitechapel, where well-known English plays are acted in "Yiddish." Here may be seen the smart young foreign Jews and Jewesses, arrayed in all their glory, on every night of the week except Friday, when the Hebrew Sabbath, which nearly all Hebrews outwardly respect, commences. He may also perhaps join the "Chovevi Zion"—Hebrew for "lovers of Zion"—a society which sprang into existence in the East End of London about twelve months ago; or he may possibly—very probably—join one of the many little gambling-hells so greatly affected by the foreign Jew. Worst of all, he may drift into one of the secret socialistic or foreign revolutionary societies which abound in that part of the metropolis. That such societies exist cannot be doubted. They are formed of the class of men who marched to Hyde Park the other day, with a banner inscribed "Down with the Czar." These societies have papers of their own circulated among themselves, written in "Yiddish," breathing the vilest of political sentiments—Nihilism of the most outrageous description.

Thus whole districts in the East of London are as foreign as in Warsaw, or the Ghetto—when there was a Ghetto—in Rome.

In considering the nature of Jewish immigration, allusion should also be made to a species of infamy which, I am credibly informed, has been carried on for some time past at the London Docks. Many of the immigrants are young women, Jewesses of considerable personal attractions. Men-sharks, and female harpies of all descriptions, are on the look-out for them as soon as they disembark. The young women are approached, and asked in "Yiddish" whether they are in want of work. The answer of course is in the affirmative, especially as many of these young Jewesses arrive in a friendless condition. "Then," comes the suggestion, "you had better come and stay with me until you get it," or "I can put you in the way of obtaining it." Of course this dodge does not always succeed, for many young Jewesses are by no means so guileless as they appear to be. But in two cases out of three it does. The girl, friendless and unprotected, goes off with her interlocutor, and then the old shameful story is repeated. She stays in the house until the little she has is more than due for board; her efforts to earn an honest living are in vain; and when she is destitute, she is told she must either leave the place, minus even her little baggage, or earn money at the expense of her virtue. Such a dilemma, in nine cases out of ten, presents only one means of escape; and the girl goes to swell the number of the lost and degraded of our great cities. One of the worst features of this system is, that the decoy is largely carried on by Englishmen and Englishwomen, and by no means confined to foreigners alone. Happily, a Jewish Ladies' Rescue Society has been recently formed, and its efforts have done something to mitigate the evil. An official from this society goes down to the docks for the purpose of warning female immigrants, and advising them where to find employment. But the difficulty still remains, and a very serious one it is.

When we come to inquire into the causes which bring so many of these foreign Jews to our shores, we find that in addition to the two principal reasons—the persecutions in Russia, and the American Immigration Laws, which render their admission to that country impracticable—there are other agencies at work as well. The existence of these agencies is a disputed question; but from inquiries which have been made, there is every reason to believe that many of the East End sweaters have agents abroad working on their behalf. The victims are caught by advertisements in the obscure Continental papers inserted by the "greener slave-agent," who sends batch after batch of poor Jews to this country, and they soon find their way into the sweaters' dens by means of the addresses given them. This method of advertisement is perhaps not so extensively carried on as formerly, but it still exists. Again, there is also the suspicion, which deepens almost into a certainty, of the existence of what is known in America as "steamship-solicitation." It is highly probable that some of the steamship companies principally concerned in bringing these people to England, have agents on the Continent engaged in persuading poor Jews, and poor foreigners generally, to come to this country with the delusive idea that they will find plenty of employment, and plenty of pecuniary assistance here. The notices which the Government have recently caused to be posted up at some of the European ports, may do something to nullify this; but the fact remains that there are several German steamship lines doing an enormous business in bringing these Jewish immigrants to our shores, and there are owners of British vessels also engaged in the same traffic. In America, where it had reached a very great extent, this "steamship-solicitation" has been declared illegal. How far the steamship agencies act in collusion with the sweaters' agents in England, it is not possible to say—or, indeed, if they are in collusion at all. One can only notice that all things work together in a very remarkable manner. A slight clue to the puzzle is afforded by the fact that in Leeds (according to the Report of the Chief Commissioner of Police) there exists a firm of money-lenders who advance money to Jewish applicants having friends in Russia and Poland, which is employed for the purpose of bringing them to this country. This will explain how some, at any rate, of these destitute immigrants manage to pay their passage-money to England.

There is another cause also, which is more controversial, but which must be touched upon all the same, since it is a very potent one in attracting destitute Jews to England. I allude to the well-known munificence of the wealthy English Jews, who are ever ready to help their poorer brethren. The admirably organized system of benevolence which they have gradually built up by means of charitable organizations, shelters, and similar institutions, constitutes nothing less than an open advertisement to the poor Jews all over Europe to come to England and have their wants supplied. I admit that these institutions are not intended to have that effect, and that many leading English Jews endeavour to discourage this immigration; but all the same they tend to have the result of drawing people here.

In Leeds, for example, the Jewish Board of Guardians give the new arrivals a small grant until they have obtained work, and if they know no trade, and are willing to learn one, the Jewish Board will make them an allowance until they are able to earn something for themselves. In London, as I have before stated, the number of cases relieved by the Jewish Board of Guardians in 1890, exclusive of Loan and Industrial Departments, was 3351, representing with dependent families 12,047 individuals, and this at a cost of £21,648. Of course, this refers to the resident Jewish population as well, the operations of the Russian and Board Conjoint Committee not being included in this statement. In fairness it should be stated that the Jewish Board of Guardians also assist many to emigrate, and generally endeavour to reduce the mischievous effects of charitable agencies to a minimum. But there are other institutions whose philanthropic activity assumes a more questionable shape. Such, for instance, is the "Poor Jews' Temporary Shelter," which it can hardly be doubted attracts many destitute Jews to this country, since in 1888 it provided board and lodging for a period of from one to fourteen days to 1322 homeless immigrants.

A similar charge has been brought against the "London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews." I have gone very carefully into this charge, and find that it is a groundless one. Not only is the Society opposed to the wholesale influx of foreign Jews, but the number of Jews converted through its influence is incredibly small. For instance, we learn from the last Annual Report that only 145 "young Hebrew Christians" were presented to the Bishop for Confirmation by the Chaplain during the ten years of his chaplaincy, or an average of about five a year. The annual income of the Society is £35,000!

I write of what I know. There are agitators in the East End of London who could arouse a Judenhetze to-morrow by merely holding up a finger. It is only the moderating influence of others which restrains them. But this influence, already strained to its utmost, will not avail for ever. If the ceaseless immigration of Russian and Polish outcasts is not brought to an end, there will be an anti-Jewish movement in Whitechapel, in Leeds, and the other centres of population affected by this evil. The irritation will develop. This would be a great social calamity, and one above all others to be avoided.

These are the principal considerations which occur to one in writing on the subject of Jewish immigration. Again let me repeat, in endeavouring to sift this apparently endless influx, there need be no anti-Semitic feeling in the matter. There is a German proverb, "Every nation has the Jew it deserves." We have these our native-born English Jews, of whom we are all proud. Sober, thrifty, industrious, law-abiding and patriotic, they are a valuable and an integral portion of our community. But with these destitute foreigners it is widely different. They bring bound up with them all the vices and habits generated by centuries of oppression and degradation. Something must be done to divert this stream before it swells into an overwhelming flood. How long is this invasion to go on? Until Russia has emptied half—the worst half—of her Jewish population on our shores? The question is one for English Jews themselves. If an anti-Semitic feeling breaks out in this country, it will be because of this Russian influx, which apparently is being allowed to go on unchecked. What are the wealthy and powerful English Jews doing to check it, to focus public opinion upon it, to urge the intervention of Parliament? Apparently nothing. Surely it is not too much to expect that a movement for judiciously restricting and diverting this alien influx, should have the support of the wealthy English Jews; and this not only because of their poor co-religionists who come here to find only fresh misery awaiting them, but also in gratitude to the country under whose enlightened rule they have amassed their wealth, and attained their present influence. There is another reason also for urgency. No one who has had any practical experience in this matter can be blind to the growing dislike and antagonism with which these destitute immigrants are viewed by the native working population with whom they come in contact. This feeling is gathering in intensity day by day.

An outbreak of this nature would be a disgrace and a reproach to our vaunted civilization, and it would be almost certain to be followed by that most dangerous phase of popular excitement—panic legislation. Surely it would be wiser statesmanship to do something now, while the matter can be considered reasonably and dispassionately, than to wait until the smouldering embers of discontent burst into a blaze, the flames of which it may be difficult to check.

[CHAPTER IV.]
ITALIAN IMMIGRATION.

Presiding at the annual meeting of the "Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress," which was held in April last (1891), Count Deym, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, stated that "the charity was founded as far back as 1806, and that the necessity for it had now increased a hundredfold. During the past year the Society paid £2151 to 285 poor foreigners, in regular instalments of from two and sixpence per week to five shillings per month, and £1357 in casual relief to 4264 persons of almost all nationalities." This is only one of the many similar societies existing in London for the aid and relief of poor and destitute foreigners—other than those which are exclusively Jewish. Such Societies are the Société Française de Bienfaisance à Londres, Société Belge de Bienfaisance à Londres, the German Society of Benevolence, which relieves Germans, Austrians, and even Russians; and the Italian Benevolent Society. It is unnecessary to enter into detailed statistics as to the amount of money expended yearly by the different Societies, or the number of members relieved; but some idea of the extent of their operation may be gathered by the fact that over £1100 was expended last year by the Italian Benevolent Society alone.

Of late years the immigration of Italians has increased to an alarming extent. London and our large provincial cities are crowded with a class of Italians who are for the most part non-producers. The Italians were amongst the earliest immigrants here, and in many respects they are the most undesirable. In this condemnation, I do not of course include those Italians who upon arriving in England take up some definite trade or employment, and who are skilled labourers, and industrious, law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately the great bulk of Italian immigrants differ widely from such as these; they are, for the most part, the idle, the vicious, and the destitute, who come here simply to pursue that nefarious course of vagrancy and begging which is now so rigidly forbidden in their native land. They bring with them slothful and degraded habits, and where they congregate to any extent, their influence upon our own people cannot fail to be otherwise than injurious.

Many of them arrive here absolutely destitute, and go at once to the Italian Consulate and beg for alms, or ask how to be put in the way of begging. The Consulate does everything in its power to discourage these people from coming to England, but they come all the same. Some of them are trained professional beggars, versed in every trick and dodge of the trade of mendicancy. Others are socialists and revolutionists of the worst type, who endeavour to use the liberty enjoyed by them here, in forming secret revolutionary societies, and in preaching the most dangerous doctrines. They work so secretly that few have any knowledge of their real influence and numbers. I am informed by an Italian gentleman, whose name I am not at liberty to give, but who has exceptional opportunities of proving the truth of his statements, that the increase of foreign and secret revolutionary societies in the Metropolis has recently been very great. The same authority writes to me in a recent letter:—"There is a large influx of destitute Italians going on: there is no work for them to do here, and they will not return home.... I believe there is a real danger in allowing aliens of all nationalities to arrive so freely in such conditions, while not socialism but anarchy is now preached in the open streets of the quarters especially resorted to by them. The result will be some serious trouble very soon, especially in winter."[12] These are not the careless words of a superficial observer, but the deliberately expressed opinion of one who holds an official position, and has intimate knowledge of the facts. With the object lesson which the recent Italian riots in the United States has presented to us, there can be little doubt that in the rapid increase of these revolutionary societies of indigent foreigners lurk the elements of a very grave political and social danger.

Thus we seem to have drifted into a position somewhat analogous to that of Rome in the closing days of her Empire. Juvenal in the second of his Satires complained that Rome had become a sink for the vices and iniquity of the known world. Johnson imitated this Satire in the following vigorous lines:—

"London, the needy villain's general home,

The common sewer of Paris and of Rome;

Condemned by fortune and resistless fate,

Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state."

Juvenal was not alone in his complaint. Horace had said somewhat the same thing before. The Satirists had certainly ample opportunities of observing the facts. When Rome was newly founded it was desirable and even necessary to encourage immigration, because citizens and soldiers were sorely needed to defend the infant State. But when Rome had advanced to the height of her Imperial power, the immense influx of foreigners attracted to the Eternal City by her wealth and by her luxury, was most calamitous. The native population of Rome were reduced to permanent pauperism, or were driven away to the colonies. The yeomanry of Italy disappeared; they took service in the Legions, and were sent away to distant settlements, their place in Rome being taken by large bodies of imported slaves, who brought with them all the habits and vices generated by long centuries of oppression and wrong. "The salvation of a country lies in its middle class." Such was the wise dictum of Aristotle; but in the latter days of the Roman Empire the middle class was wanting. How fatal was this, is clearly seen by the different powers of resistance that Rome exhibited at different periods of her history. Under the Republic, when the middle class was dominant, though Italy was several times invaded, the native population always proved too strong for the invaders. When under the latter days of the Empire the middle class was wanting, and there was nothing but fabulous wealth and prodigal luxury on the one hand, and abject poverty and consequent misery on the other, the heart of the State became corrupt; and as soon as the Barbarians had broken through the cordon of Legions at the frontier, the mighty Roman Empire sank to rise no more.

Historical parallels are often misleading, and this analogy, like other analogies, may of course be carried too far; but it is in some respects a close one. When Rome in the height of her Imperial splendour welcomed all nationalities who ministered to her profligacy and luxury, it was a sign of the canker which in time ate away the heart of the Empire. So too, England in the Victorian era—an era of prosperity unequalled even by Imperial Rome—throws open wide her arms to receive the destitute, the criminal, and the worthless of other lands, heedless of the injury which the influx of such a class must work upon her own community, and forgetful that the first duty of the State is towards its own people.

The saddest aspect of this question of Italian immigration is the traffic in Italian children, which has been for so long carried on in this country under the auspices of the padroni, and which continues to flourish despite all the efforts which have been made to check it. "Child-slavery in England" it has been called; and certainly the condition of these poor children is in many respects little better than that of slaves. I have spoken and written so much about this matter,[13] that there is little now left to be said; still, in spite of laying myself open to the charge of repeating an oft-told tale, I must needs allude to it once more, since no treatise upon Italian immigration would be otherwise complete.

The traffic is carried on in this wise:—The children are brought over from Italy by men who obtain them from their parents upon payment of a very small sum; for a few ducats annually (a ducat equals 3s. 6d.), and upon undertaking to clothe and feed them. The parents who thus dispose of their children are for the most part poor peasants living in Calabria, and the south of Italy. Sometimes the parents will bring the children to England themselves, and sometimes they are confided to relations; but often it is a traffic, and they sell their children into what is a veritable slavery without troubling about their future, and glad to be relieved of the responsibility and expense of their maintenance and education. The padroni—that is the masters—having thus gained possession of the children, they bring them to England. Some travel by railway, but many of them actually journey on foot, walking from town to town, village to village, all the way up to Dieppe or Calais, and from thence crossing over to our shores.

The children are imported here simply for the purpose of following one or the other of the vagrant professions in the streets of London and throughout the country. They are sent out early in the morning with an accordion, concertina, or other instrument, and told to sing or play before houses, and then to wait for money. As a rule they do not openly beg for alms, as this would bring them within the reach of law; but they just stand and wait, and benevolent persons, attracted by their picturesque appearance, are moved to compassion, and give them money, ignorant or forgetful of the fact that this money benefits them personally not at all, but the padrone whose property they are.

The padroni are often very severe, and treat the children just like slaves. If they do not bring home a sufficient sum they are cruelly beaten and ill-treated, kept without food or nourishment, and sent hungry to bed. Very often these poor children do not get home from their weary rounds until past midnight, and they are often found utterly worn out, and fast asleep under an archway or upon a doorstep. They are wretchedly lodged, huddled together, four or five sleeping in a bed when they have one to sleep in at all; and being private houses, their lodgings are not in any way open to inspection or improvement.

The traffic is most lucrative, and the gains the padroni make out of these children are very large—so much so indeed, that after a few years they are able to retire to Italy and to live as country gentlemen afterwards. Sometimes a child will bring home as much as 10s. or more a day; and as often one padrone has as many as fifty children under his care, spread about in companies in London and in the country under the supervision of his confederates, it will be seen that the total amount of a number of small sums accumulating daily must be very large. Of course sometimes the children bring home very little, and sometimes nothing at all; but the penalty in this case is to be beaten and kept without food, so fear stimulates their efforts, and they do not often return quite empty-handed.

The effects of this evil system upon its victims is necessarily very bad. They do not go to school, they become very idle, and begin early to drink, smoke, and take all kinds of vices. They grow up immoral, illiterate, vicious, and low; a degraded class, exercising a most undesirable influence among the surrounding population. The girls especially all go to the bad, because they are sent into low drinking-shops, public-houses, and similar places. When they grow up, they all become beggars and vagrants by profession, and always remain so, for they have learned no other trade, and many can neither read nor write. Some remain in England, but many go over to Italy, and bring over children themselves. Sometimes, when they are seventeen or eighteen years old, they run away from the padrone and set up on their own account.

Many efforts have been made to put a stop to this disgraceful traffic; but hitherto everything seems to have fallen short of the mark. The Italian Benevolent Society has been untiring in its efforts to stop the trade. So long ago as 1876 the Society went on a deputation to the London School Board, with the result that it was decided to compel these children to go to school in the same way as if they had been English children. But the padrone was equal to the occasion. He removed his troupe from Saffron Hill, to the outlying districts of Deptford, Greenwich, and Hammersmith. There the School Board takes no action, and there the children dwell in large numbers, free to ply their trade, and secure from compulsory education. The Children's Protection Act was also another step in the right direction, and it has certainly ameliorated the state of affairs; but for various reasons, chiefly because the limit of age is rather too low, it does not seem to go to the root of the evil.

Several suggestions to remedy this state of affairs have been made, all worthy of consideration. One is that there should be a tightening of the compulsory action of the School Boards all over the country. It is illogical that these children should be compelled to go to school in London, and in the country allowed to roam where they please. Doubtless this would have a very good effect, and the gains of the padroni would be sensibly diminished. Another suggestion is, to increase the limit of age laid down in the Children's Protection Act to eighteen years of age in the case of persons of both sexes, thus bringing the Act into accord with a drastic law which was passed in Italy in 1873,[14] and which has been found very effectual there. This course, however, is obviously open to objection, since it might press hardly upon individual cases. The most effectual remedy would be to adopt the plan followed in America, namely, to stop these children at the port of arrival, and the padroni, and send them all back at once to their own country. In all European countries they are expelled, or refused admission. Such a course, however, would require a special law, and that necessarily will be some time in coming. The question is:—what is to be done in the meantime? That the evil still continues to flourish there can be no manner of doubt. The padroni do not confine their attentions only to children, but frequently bring over whole families as well. A case came to light in Birmingham this year,[15] of a padrone named Delicato, who had brought over an Italian family—a father, a mother, and two daughters. At the end of two years the record of that unfortunate family was as follows:—The father was paid £2 for two years' work and discharged; the mother had previously been sent back to Italy, because from ill-health she had become practically useless to her master. One of the daughters Delicato had seduced, and she is still living with him; the other daughter ran away and married, and her husband brought an action to recover her earnings. When the case came before the Court, the whole transaction was exposed. Inquiries were also instituted as to the antecedents of Delicato, and it was found that he had been carrying on this nefarious trade for years, and had three separate establishments in different parts of the country. It was found that this man had seduced no less than three young girls who had been committed to his care, and then abandoned them. This is no uncommon occurrence, for the padroni are men utterly without principle, and thoroughly bad in every way.

The parents are almost as bad as the padroni, as the following instance will show:—An Italian named Mancini was recently[16] charged before the Bow Street Police Court for causing a child to solicit alms. It was a case of heartless cruelty. The little girl, his daughter, was engaged in dragging a heavy barrel-organ about the streets. At intervals she stopped and turned the handle, her father meanwhile standing a little way off to see what coppers she obtained. It was raining at the time the man was taken in charge, and the child's boots were saturated with water, and her clothes literally drenched. She was only nine years of age. Another instance of the rapacity of the padroni is illustrated by the following case, of even more recent date.[17] A young ice-cream vendor named Romano brought an action against his master, Auguste Pampa, at the Brompton County Court, for the recovery of four months' wages. It appeared that Romano had arrived in this country in a state of absolute destitution. Pampa, a compatriot, agreed to give him work, and an agreement was drawn up between them. It set forth that Pampa engaged Romano for one year to sell ice-cream in the streets of London; that he should be paid £1 2s. a month, and that Pampa should board and lodge him, and provide him with clothes. The plaintiff said that the defendant used to send him out in rags in all sorts of weather, and that he literally had no clothes to cover him. The judge gave a verdict for the plaintiff. The case throws a strong light upon the fate of Italian immigrants in London, and upon the class of Italians who come here.

The best way to put down this infamous traffic, in default of restrictive legislation, is undoubtedly to lose no opportunities of bringing the painful facts before the public. If once the charitable public could be made to understand that the money they give to those little ones benefits them personally not at all, but goes to swell the gains of the rapacious padrone, who laughs and grows rich upon the sufferings of his victims, the supplies would be cut off at their source, and the dream of the padrone to return to sunny Italy and live there as a country gentleman, vanish for ever.

Few have any conception of the extent or nature of Italian immigration. Signor Righetti, the Secretary of the Italian Benevolent Society, estimates the number of Italians in London alone at upwards of 9000. In this estimate his opinion is corroborated by Signor Roncoroni, Secretary of the Societá dei Cuochi e Camerieri, who states that out of this 9000, 2000 are employed as Italian cooks and waiters in London. These of course can in no sense be objected to, because they are skilled labourers. Of the remaining 7000, the vast majority are either organ-grinders or ice-cream vendors. The head-quarters of the organ-grinders is—or was—at Eyre Street Hill, a steep and narrow thoroughfare forming a connecting link between Leather Lane and Coppice Row in Clerkenwell. There are a few minor settlements in Kensington, another in Notting Hill, a third in Somers Town; but the principal foreign colony is situated at Eyre Street Hill. Eyre Street Hill has tortuous ins and outs, and numerous blind alleys, in each and all of which Italians swarm.

The Italian ice-cream barrow has become as familiar a picture in London street-trading as the apple-stall, baked chestnuts, or baked potato stove. The profits derived from the sale of this unwholesome compound are said to be very satisfactory; and certainly the quantity manufactured must be enormous. There is a depôt for ice on Eyre Street Hill. All day long, during the summer months, may be seen there waggon-loads of ice-cubes, which are afterwards broken up for the purpose required. Also the vendor of lemons does a brisk business in the same locality, and likewise the milkman—or rather, I should say, the man who sells what passes for milk. The ingredients of the ice-cream may possibly be found harmless enough; but the way in which the compound is prepared is in the last degree objectionable. The manufacture is often carried on in the living-room of the family, the condition of which is filthy and disgusting in the extreme. Near Leather Lane there is one short street of high black houses, the windows of which are patched and plugged with paper and rags. The passages and stairs are dilapidated and filthy, and the sanitary conditions simply abominable. In almost every room of each of these houses, resides at least one ice-cream maker, and vendor. Such a room will serve as a living and sleeping room for a whole family—the man, his wife, and a numerous progeny.

The inhabitants of this foreign colony work all the week with their ice-barrows or their barrel-organs, but Saturday evening is, with them, a time of relaxation and pastime. With the natives of the sunny South, not to enjoy is not to live; and though I do not include in the numbers of those who amuse themselves, the miserable little victims of the padroni, the comparatively well-to-do Italians always go in for amusing themselves as soon as they can afford it. Dancing is the chief pastime of these people. On Saturday nights they regularly assemble together for this purpose, the women arrayed in the picturesque attire of their native country, and the men in their holiday garments likewise. As I have never been to one, I cannot say how these gatherings are conducted. They are not carried on in licensed premises, but in the cellars and kitchens of private houses, where admission to strangers is denied. Probably they are harmless enough. One thing is tolerably certain, refreshments are not supplied on the premises. There are plenty of public-houses hard by; and an observant person standing in the bar of one of them while the dancing is going on in an adjoining house, will note from time to time a sudden inrush of several couples still flushed and panting from the Terpsichorean exercise in which they have been indulging; who after a hearty draught of something in a pewter pot will rush off, and dance away again. On Saturday night the tap-rooms of the taverns in the vicinity of Saffron Hill are well filled; and brisk business is done in drinkables. The company, however, is not exclusively Italian; there being a goodly number of Irish besides.

The Italians are credited as a race with having a sensitive ear for music. One can only say that those of their countrymen who come over here and inflict upon us the ear-torturing melodies of their barrel-organs and accordions sadly belie the reputation of their country. When once asked in the House of Commons if he could do anything to put down this nuisance, Mr. Goschen replied that it was a difficult matter, inasmuch as many derived great pleasure from the music of the barrel-organ. Such an answer leads one to suppose that Mr. Goschen has not such a keen ear for music as he has an eye to finance, and also that he is ignorant of the true facts.

Even on a superficial aspect the nuisance is intolerable; but that is the least part of the evil. When we come to look beneath the surface of the seemingly careless existence of these Italian street musicians, and see the cruelty, hardships, and injustice which is undoubtedly bound up with the system, we shall recognize that it is high time that something was done to put down what is not only an intolerable nuisance, but also an evil trade.

For a nation which was foremost in abolishing the slave-trade, to tamely tolerate in its midst an inhuman traffic like this, is something worse than an anachronism—it is a disgrace, and a reproach upon our vaunted civilization.

[CHAPTER V.]
ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS.

The economic aspect of this many-sided question is undoubtedly one of the gravest and most worthy of consideration. The unlimited influx of cheap, destitute, foreign labour, cannot but exercise a prejudicial effect upon the wages of the native working-classes. It forces the decent British workman to compete on unequal terms with those who are willing to work for any wage—however meagre—for any number of hours, and amid surroundings filthy and disgusting in the extreme. I do not of course say that it has this effect upon wages in all industries, but only in those trades which the evil has yet reached. These are not great trades, perhaps, in the sense of the textile or metal industries, but they are considerable industries all the same, and they give employment to hundreds of thousands of men and women.

In the trades and districts chiefly affected, this is the agency which reduces the price of labour to a level below that upon which Englishmen and Englishwomen can with decency and self-respect exist, and which renders effectual combination impossible. Every one with any practical knowledge of business, will admit that it is the lowest price which rules the market. If then we have a body of men combining together for the purpose of getting what they consider to be a fair wage, how can they maintain that combination, if, when a strike occurs, or any little dispute arises between employer and employed, by which the employed hope to get a little better terms for themselves, the destitute foreigner steps in ready to undersell them, and to work for little or next to nothing at all? Nor, as things stand, can the employers be greatly blamed either. In these trades few of them are great capitalists, the battle of life is pretty hard on them too, and in struggling to better themselves, they naturally seize every legal means that offers.

One of the worst features of this system is the "multiplication of small masters." The subject is a tempting one, but space forbids me to dwell on it. I would only say that the competition among these small employers is almost as fierce as the competition among the employed. Much indignation has been directed against the "sweater," the bloated human spider, who, according to Alton Locke, sucks the life-blood of his victims, or who more recently has been presented to us in the pages of Punch as a gorgeously-apparelled, champagne-drinking, cigar-smoking Hebrew, who, as he rakes in his gold, laughs and grows fat upon the sufferings of the wretched creatures sacrificed to his greed.

Such monsters do exist. Of that there can be no doubt. They are by no means exclusively Hebrews, neither are they confined to the tailoring trade alone; nor is it necessary to go as far as Whitechapel in search of them. But a dispassionate study of the facts will show that the great bulk of the "sweaters" are very poor; and that with their profits driven down by competition, they can hardly make a living. In fact, both employers and employed are alike the victims of this fierce competitive struggle, and of the craze for cheapness at any cost. The result is that the market is flooded with a quantity of cheap and inferior articles which injure the trade, and destroy the demand for good English work.

At present, the two trades most affected are the cheap tailoring and boot-making. In the former, as a direct consequence, all the horrors of "sweating" reign supreme. In the latter, the cheaper kind of work is now taken by foreigners entirely; hundreds of Englishmen who were formerly employed in it at a fair wage are driven out of employment, and now seek in vain for work. "Oh," but I hear some say, "they can turn their hands to something else." But it is not so easy for a man who has been apprenticed and brought up to a certain trade, to turn his hand to "something else." His craft is his bread, his trade is his capital; it is dear to him, for upon it he has lavished all his skill, all his energies. It is hard that he should be robbed of it by the foreigner. These two trades are not the only ones affected. In the cabinet-making, chair-turning, cigar-making, cheap fur trade, and other industries, the same evil is beginning to work, and always with similar baleful results. Labour is displaced; Englishmen are robbed of their work; and if they do not become paupers or something worse, they are driven from their homes to seek their fortunes anew in some distant land.

The evil effect of this unchecked immigration upon the price of labour is very marked. I have collected together a few articles made by "sweated" workpeople in the East End, and have traced out the cost of labour in each instance. These samples include a wooden "Windsor" chair, solidly put together, and neatly turned; it was sold for 1s. 9d., and the price paid for making it was 2-1/2d. A fur collarette of hareskin, dyed gray and lined—really a very decent-looking article—was sold for 1s. 6d.; labour received, 1-3/4d. A pair of button boots, leather-lined throughout, were bought for 3s. 11-1/2d.; labour received 2-1/2d. for the "lasting" (i.e. sewing, heeling, and putting together); this 2-1/2d. did not include nails, wax, thread, all necessary to the work, which had to be found by the workman. Three pairs of boots can be "lasted" in an hour. There is also the "finishing," which costs 2d., and five pairs can be "finished" in an hour. But the most striking instance of all is that of a knickerbocker suit, well-made, and properly adorned with braid, made by a "sweated" workwoman in the East End. It was bought at a shop for 2s. 11d., and the woman received for making it 5-1/2d.; which wretched pittance did not include needles, thread, and material used in the binding, all of which had to be found by the person "sweated." Now, I put it fairly and dispassionately to any unprejudiced person, if honest labour has no better reward to offer than this, what wonder if thousands of our people, in despair of earning a decent livelihood, are driven into vice and degradation—the men to drink, the women to prostitution?

Much has been said and written about the exact number of these alien immigrants, which, as has already been pointed out, in the present dearth of trustworthy statistics, cannot be accurately ascertained. It is not merely a question of numbers. I submit that it matters comparatively little to the main argument whether the arrivals in one particular year were a few thousands more or a few thousands less, or the precise numbers of "those who return again to the Continent," when there are already so many of these indigent foreigners in our midst. Even supposing for the sake of argument—I do not for one moment admit it—that the numbers arriving are comparatively small, they would still have a very bad effect upon the price of wages, in the trades and industries upon which they entered. The inflow of a comparatively small number into a neighbourhood where much of the work is low-skilled and irregular, will often produce an effect which seems quite out of proportion to the actual number of the invaders. From the native labourer's point of view, the mere fact of the presence of these low-living foreigners, ready as they are at any moment to step in and undersell his labour, constitutes a standing menace to his interests. In all the trades in which they are employed, the rate of wages is being perpetually beaten down.

Thus it follows that any argument drawn from the number of these destitute aliens, as compared with the total population of the United Kingdom, is obviously wide of the mark. We must consider their distribution in particular localities and particular trades; more than that, in order to arrive at any valuable result, we must examine also into the local and trade distribution of foreign labour conjointly.

In this connection the evidence comes almost entirely from the East End of London. As we have seen, the two trades principally affected are the cheap tailoring and boot-making. Let us consider the latter first.

Mr. Freak, Secretary of the Shoemakers' Society, stated before the Immigration Committee, that over 10,000 foreigners were engaged in the boot-making trade in the East End of London. He said:—"Until within ten or fifteen years ago, the Jew foreigners did not affect our trade much; but by degrees they have taken the work that men generally learned their trade on, such as the commoner class of work. They simply have taken it to themselves entirely, and the effect has been that hundreds of our men have to walk about, particularly in winter-time, who used to be employed on that class of work. These Jew foreigners work in our trade at this common work sixteen or eighteen hours a day, and the consequence is, they make a lot of cheap nasty stuff that destroys the market, and injures us. And if we have a strike on, or any little dispute occurs in our trade, when we might otherwise get a little better terms for ourselves, they go and take the work at any price, and so defeat our ends in getting or attempting to get our proper wages." Mr. Freak reckons that about 25 per cent. of the persons engaged in the whole of the boot and shoe trade in the city of London are foreigners; but that the commoner kind of work is monopolized by foreigners entirely. He further said that the introduction of this pauper labour has seriously affected the rate of wages received by the English operatives, not of course so much in the best shops, but very greatly in the commoner class of work. It had also the effect of reducing the employment of a large number of Englishmen, and of driving hundreds out of work altogether. He went on to say:—"I know that at the time when I first came to London, any one could get work at the middle or common class of goods; and now they are sent out to the homes or given to the sweaters, who take them on the system that they are working themselves in the way I have mentioned; and the price is reduced so low that to work single-handed a man could not get his living. He has to sweat his children or his wife; and if a man and his wife and children do not want anything more than just bread and cheese and sleep, then they might get a living out of it; because some of these Jews who come over will not come out of the house for a whole week. They will sleep in the same place where they work day after day. They simply get food and the barest raiment to cover them, and that is all they can get for their work. I do not think that these foreign Jews have created any new industry; but they have made the industry in common work more beastly, and I do think that they are doing an injury in our foreign markets by the stuff that they make, because a great quantity of it is made of cardboard and composition. The leather that is put into the sole is simply a bit of veneer. It is simply a thin sole covered over a composition—clump as we call it. It is composed of shreds of leather, ground up, and stuck together."

Now let us consider the cheap tailoring trade in the East End. It appears, upon the evidence of Dr. Ogle, whose work it is to prepare the statistical part of the Census, and whose opinion upon all such matters stands deservedly high, that of the persons engaged in the tailoring trade, in the parish of St. George's-in-the-East, over 80 per cent. are foreigners. Mr. Zeitlin, Secretary of the Jews' branch of the Tailors' Association, himself a Russian Jew, stated before the same Committee that there were altogether employed in the East End of London about 25,000 tailors, of whom 10,000 are men and 15,000 women. Out of the 10,000 men, "mostly foreigners and not born here," three-parts are Jewish, and one part not Jewish; and of the women three-parts are English, and one part Jewesses.

Mr. John Burnett, Labour Correspondent of the Board of Trade, who was specially deputed in August 1887 to make inquiries into the Sweating system in the East End of London, reported that matters were much worse there of late years, because of the "enormous influx of pauper foreigners." He made a rough calculation that of some 20,000 tailors in the East End of London, 15,000 were foreigners—that is, persons not born in England; and of the remaining 5000, nearly all were Jews born in England, who might almost be described as foreigners also, since in their habits and their customs they have nothing in common with the native community. He stated that there were not more than 250 Englishmen employed in the cheap tailoring trade in the whole East End of London. They have all been driven out by Jews. There is, however, still a considerable employment of Englishwomen. Mr. Burnett also drafted a memorandum on the immigration of foreigners, and in it he stated that in respect of the trades and districts chiefly affected by it, the evil had assumed serious aspects. He considered that London, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Glasgow—to some extent Edinburgh, and also some other Scotch towns—were affected by the evil. There is of course the general lack of actual statistics as to the precise amount of the foreign population in these towns; but the Glasgow Trades' Council, for instance, though it has no specific information to hand on the subject, states generally that the tailoring in that city is overrun by Polish Jews. Mr. Burnett contemplates the time when the ready-made clothing trade will be entirely in foreign hands.

The presence of foreign immigration is felt also, though to a lesser extent, in cabinet-making and other trades. In the cabinet-making trade, Mr. Burnett estimates that of 23,000 persons engaged in it in London, 4000 are foreigners, chiefly Germans, and many of them German, Russian, and Polish Jews. He draws a distinction between the Germans pure and simple, and the German, Russian, and Polish Jews, for this reason. The Germans are found in the superior workshops of the West End, and they are found receiving the same rate of wages as their English shop-mates; but in the cases of the Russian and Polish Jews at the East End, they are receiving a much lower rate when they are employed, and they are employed on inferior work under entirely different conditions.

The foregoing considerations make it clear that the effect of foreign immigration upon the condition of our own workmen is not to be measured by the small percentage foreigners bear to the general population of the United Kingdom; but by their distribution in the particular trades of particular localities.

It is impossible to deny the displacing power of so large an addition to labour, in trades already overcrowded. The fact that under such circumstances the new-comers find employment, infers of necessity the displacement of labour previously employed. It implies also the denial of employment to natives anxious to obtain it. Nor is this large intrusion of a foreign element confined in its effects to the displacement of native labour alone. It brings down to its own level labour that is not displaced. In all trades that do not require long apprenticeship and technical skill, the supply of labour is greatly in excess of the demand. Competition to obtain employment is in consequence cruelly severe. The inevitable results are, the evasion of the law respecting factories and workshops, the reduction of wages to the lowest minimum, and the extension of the hours of work to the utmost limits of human endurance.

The effect of foreign immigration upon our labouring population is far greater than might at first be supposed. Its inevitable effect is the degradation of all the native labour employed, to the level of the foreign labour which is brought into competition with it. When the struggle is between those accustomed to a higher, and those accustomed to a lower standard of life, the latter can obviously oust the former and take their work. Just as a base currency drives out of circulation a pure currency, so does a lower standard of comfort drive out a higher one.

What do competent authorities say on the subject of native labour?

Mr. Goodman, who was a member of the Executive Committee of the Liverpool Tailors' Society, stated in his evidence before the House of Lords' Committee, that fifteen years ago the Sweating system only existed to a very limited extent in Liverpool; but that now it was carried on in a most extensive manner. He said that he accounted for its existence to a very large extent by the influx of foreigners, principally Jews. "At the present moment, fully two-thirds of the sweaters in Liverpool are foreigners; the majority of whom, as I have already stated, are not tailors at all, and have never served one hour in the tailor trade properly as an apprentice. I was told by a Jew some time ago, and he made a serious complaint to me on that head, that he was already finding the competition of his own people so severe, that being a practical man, he should have to do as they had done in many cases, lower his prices, or else he could not make a living. The competition, even amongst the Jews, is getting so severe that the prices are constantly tending to decrease; and I believe that to-day they are very much lower than they were a few years ago in Liverpool, through this competition of foreigners amongst themselves, together with their competition with the natives."

Mr. Allen, Secretary of the Master Tailors' Association in Liverpool, stated that, "As an Association, we have discussed the matter, and we are opposed to it in the main (i.e. foreign immigration), and we passed a resolution that the importation of pauper aliens be prohibited with this condition, the prohibition not to extend to skilled workmen imported under contract."

Mr. Keir, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Tailors, thus moderately and dispassionately stated the case:—"I hardly know that it would be wise to stop immigration altogether. That would be an unnatural and hardly fair way of doing the thing; but I think it ought to be regulated in some way, and that the poorest, and most miserable, and the unskilled, perhaps, of foreign labour ought not to be thrown upon the markets of England to oppose and to act detrimentally to the interests of the English people. I do not think it would be wise, and I don't know that we could advocate, and I am sure any intelligent man would not advocate altogether, the complete prohibition of foreign labour; but at the same time I think there must be, or ought to be, some means devised whereby skilled labour should contend against skilled labour in a fair and straight market. It is not skilled labour against skilled labour; it is poverty thrown in our midst, and it is poverty competing with itself, as it were; and struggling in that way, and the manner in which they live, the food they eat, and the circumstances under which they exist, deprive them altogether of the comforts of home, you may almost say, as far as Englishmen, Scotchmen, or Welshmen are concerned."

One point remains to be noted. It has been urged that these immigrant aliens do not enter upon native trades, but introduce new industries of their own. If that were really the case, such a contention would undoubtedly have much weight. The Huguenots established new industries of silk, glass, and paper; the Flemings introduced the finer class of weaving into England; in both of these cases the alien influx was beneficial. But it cannot be seriously maintained that these low-class Jewish immigrants have stimulated or created new wants. They have created no new trade; they have debased old ones. I admit that they almost monopolize the cheap clothing trade, but even here they have created no new kind of industry.

The power of the German, Russian, or Polish Jew, accustomed to a lower standard of life, to undersell the English worker in the English labour market must be admitted by all, though the exact importance of it is, I know, a disputed point. The industrial degradation of the "sweated" workers arises from the fact that they are working surrounded by a "pool of unemployed," or superfluous supply of labour. So long as this standing pool remains, and so long as it is ever being augmented by the endless influx of cheap, destitute foreign labour, so long it is difficult to see how the wages of the low unskilled workers can be materially raised. Let the pool be gradually drawn off, and wages will rise, since the combined action of the workers will no longer be able to be defeated by the eagerness of the foreigner to take their work and wages. But the pool can never be drawn off until the stream which so largely recruits it is cut off at its source. If once this foreign influx is stopped, it will decrease by the natural process of evaporation.

Let us take a national view. The true standard of a nation's prosperity is to be found in the prosperity of its working-classes. The higher the rate of wages the better is the condition of the working-classes; the cheaper the labour of a country, the lower the condition of the people therein. One of the surest signs of the real rise of a nation is the elevation of the masses in their wages, their habits, their homes, their scale of living, and their condition generally. Anything which tends to reduce the price of labour tends also to reduce the labourer's standard of comfort and prosperity, and there can be no manner of doubt that this continuous influx of destitute foreigners does tend both directly and indirectly to reduce the profits of the wage-earning classes. Wages follow certain inexorable laws of supply and demand. If the supply of human labour exceeds the market demand, then the men will be beaten down; and how can the supply do otherwise than exceed the demand, when the market is being continually flooded by the influx of the cheapest kind of foreign labour?

"Unrestricted immigration," said a witness before the United States Committee, "is the degradation of American labour." If that be true in a country of such enormous resources as the United States, how much more true must it be in our own densely-populated little island? It is the high rate of wages which has given to the American workmen their unexampled prosperity as citizens. It is the recognition of this truth which has induced the United States Government to guard its doors so jealously against the entrance of the destitute and unfit of other lands. And they are right, not only on economic grounds, but for other reasons as well, since all history teaches us that in the long run degraded labour is sure to avenge itself upon all the classes above it.

"Rely upon yourselves; by societies, combinations, and well-directed strikes, you can secure higher wages and better conditions for yourselves." Such are the words of the "old" Trades Unionism, and in the main they are true enough. But in this instance they fall beside the mark; for, as I have already pointed out, combination is rendered impossible by this fierce competition of destitute labour from abroad. In the industries affected, any man or woman, or any body of men or women, who refused to work upon the sweating prices quoted, would be simply turned away, and their places filled by the foreigner. They are literally living from hand to mouth. They know that if they lose their wage one week, they will be destitute the next, and starving the week after. Under these circumstances it is not surprising to find that there exists among the native working-classes the strongest feeling against the great and increasing invasion of their rights. This feeling is not only confined to the trades chiefly affected, it is rapidly spreading throughout the country. So far as I have been able to judge, the feeling among the working-classes in favour of restrictive measures is practically unanimous. A vast majority of the great Trades Unions and Labour Organizations—not only those immediately affected, but others as well—have passed strongly-worded resolutions on the subject, recognizing that though the evil may not yet have sensibly affected their particular industry, yet it tends indirectly to do so. That the labour organizations are fully alive to the importance of this question is shown by the following letter, taken almost at random from hundreds of similar communications which have reached me during the last few months. It is from the Secretary of the "National Society of Amalgamated Brassworkers," Birmingham.[18] The arguments are so clearly and cogently put, that they are well worthy of being quoted here.

"The Executive desire me to say that they are unanimously of opinion that the time has come when the State should regulate, in the interests of British labour, the immigration of destitute aliens; and that they have observed with alarm the injury done to their brethren in the East End of London and other parts of the country by this element of unfair competition. My Executive desire me also to say that these conclusions are arrived at reluctantly, as they would like this country to be a really happy England, giving welcome to the oppressed of every land. While, however, they hold this view strongly, they are also of opinion that this broad principle must not be allowed, to any appreciable extent, to be the means of pauperizing English men and English women. The unchecked admission of this force has spread enough misery; and it is hoped that your efforts will bring about such restrictions as will put an end to an evil which has been the means of providing a surplus labour market to become a ready prey to the sweater."

These are weighty words. They come from an important Society, which, though its members have not yet felt the shoe pinch themselves, they recognize the truth of the old saying, "If one member suffers, all the other members suffer with it." This utterance does not stand alone; it is but an echo of the opinion of similar organizations throughout the country.[19] The English workman is naturally patient and law-abiding. It is his nature to suffer and be strong. All that he asks for—and surely it is not an unreasonable request—is that he should be allowed a fair field for his energies in the land that gave him birth. If this be denied him, then, sooner or later, will follow consequences, which, to quote Herbert Spencer, "no man may tell in language."

It is because this movement is so essentially a workingman's movement that I am confident of its ultimate success. Let us look the situation in the face. The balance of power has passed into the hands of the wage-earning classes—three-fourths of the electorate are wage-earners; I use the word in its widest sense. Therefore, it follows as a matter of course, that just as the land-owning classes when they had the power made laws in their interests; and the trading-classes when they had the power passed laws for their interests; so the working, wage-earning classes of this country, now that they have the power, will use it to protect and advance their interests likewise. And what can touch their interests more nearly than this unrestricted immigration of destitute foreign labour? "The flowing tide is with us." Whatever may be the immediate interests of the hour, labour questions constitute the politics of the future. There are signs all round the world that social problems and labour questions are gradually taking the place of older issues over which men have contended. There is no likelihood now of a war about creeds, no dynastic contest is now on the cards; the rivalries of nations and of races are not as potent as they were; but the lot of the "dim millions," the labouring-classes, who were ignored by all the warriors and statesmen of the past, is now forcing its way to the front. The contest which is gathering will not be around "exhausted factories and obsolete policies," as Mr. Disraeli said in 1852, but living problems, coming home to the hearts and to the firesides of all labouring men. Labour legislation is the legislation of the future; and it needs no prophetic eye to foresee that one of the leading measures in the labour programme of the future will be to protect the English working-men against this perpetual pouring in of destitute foreigners. Hitherto in only one constituency, Lewisham, has this question found a prominent place in an electioneering programme. We all know the result of that election. As it was at Lewisham, so will it be before long in every urban constituency throughout England. "Why," the working-classes are asking, "should we be robbed of our birthright by the refuse population of other countries?" Why, indeed! People are beginning to see that a great and crying evil flourishes in our midst; and when that fact has been thoroughly digested, means will soon be found to remedy it.

[CHAPTER VI.]
WOMAN'S BITTER CRY.

The woes of the East End workwomen form no new theme. They are as old as the "Song of the Shirt"; even older. In spite of Hood's inspired poem, which when it appeared rang like a tocsin through the land, the miseries of the needlewoman's lot have not only remained unalleviated, but they have gathered in intensity as the years rolled on. How comes it that in these days of social politics and remedial legislation, the condition of such a numerous body should have gone from bad to worse? The answer is not far to seek. They have no votes; the politician passes them by. They have no money to spend, no time to strike, no strength to combine, the agitator ignores them. The class for which I plead, is voiceless, voteless, inarticulate, helpless. These poor women have never been consulted as to whether they are content to pay the price needed to continue the so-called "traditions" of England with regard to the unrestricted entrance of the refuse population of other countries. They are not likely to be consulted, since they are powerless; no one angles for their votes, for they have none to give. The strong man in his strength when confronted by this alien invasion can battle with it, or when the contest is hopeless, he can retire before it. The world is open to him, and in other lands beyond the seas he may find that fair field for his energies which is denied him in the land of his birth. But the weak woman in her weakness, what of her? She must perforce remain to feebly fight on single-handed in the unequal struggle; and when her weakness conquers her, when her strength fails her, she can only lie down and die. This is a terrible alternative, is there no other? Yes, there is another, infinitely more terrible, infinitely more horrible—the streets.

If we apply the four leading features of the "sweating" disease—low wages, long hours, irregular employment, unsanitary conditions—to women, we shall find that in each case the absolute pressure is heavier upon the weaker sex. This is not to be wondered at. Physically weaker than men, women receive a smaller amount of work, and a lower rate of wages, especially in unskilled labour. Combination can do nothing for them; it does not reach them. The mass of women-workers labour either at home or in the small "sweating dens"; the long hours, the excessive labour, and the under-feeding, crush out all the spirit and strength of resistance they possess, and with them combination is impossible.

But it is upon the system of "out-work" that "sweating" thrives, and it is this "out-work" that women, more especially married women, chiefly engage. One would think that the very weakness of women, the duties of maternity, the care of children, ought to secure them some respite in this industrial struggle, but it is not so. We are always boasting of our civilization and our Christianity, yet these humanitarian considerations avail nothing. On the contrary, they only handicap women the more, and tell fatally against them in the competitive battle. The commercial competition of to-day in the cheap clothing trade, intensified as it is by the influx of the foreigner, positively trades upon the maternity of women-workers. These poor creatures have no time for the pure tender delights of motherhood; they have no opportunity of attending properly to their children, or to the many other little duties which gather around the English word "home." To the low-class foreign Jew this matters little, for the word "home" to him has no meaning at all; but to Englishmen and to Englishwomen it offers a terrible problem. What "hope of our race" can we expect from the feeble, half-starved, and wholly overworked Englishwoman, who is thus thrust into the furnace of this fierce foreign competition!

There is another consideration also to be faced, which I have already hinted at. The unrestricted immigration of destitute aliens tends directly to increase prostitution in London and our large cities. This is a startling proposition; let me proceed to demonstrate its truth.

A witness giving evidence before the Sweating Committee, described the sweater's dens as "the most filthy, poisoning, soul-and-body-killing places imaginable." Even to stand at the open door of one of such places, and to breathe the fœtid air which rushes forth, is well-nigh unendurable to persons not hardened to such conditions. Yet it is in such places as these that Englishwomen are compelled to work side by side with the foreigner. To the foreigner it seems not to matter so much; to the Englishwoman, sooner or later, it is certain death. But I hear some say, "How about the Factory Regulations?" In theory the Factory Regulations are admirable; in practice they are utterly inadequate. Their provisions are constantly evaded. Women are kept working in these dens from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., 10 p.m., or even midnight; or the intention of the Act is frustrated by their being given work to do at home. A case was mentioned before the House of Lords' Committee of a girl eighteen years of age, who worked from seven in the morning to half-past eight at night, for wages ranging from 3s. to 8s. a week. On Fridays she worked from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. (eleven hours), that being considered half a day, and paid for accordingly. All sorts of tricks are played to evade the Factory Inspector. His first appearance in the street is notified all along the sweating dens by a preconcerted signal. When he arrives at the door, he is kept in parley for a minute or two. Meanwhile the women and girls are smuggled away, and by the time he is admitted there is not a woman visible. They lend themselves, poor creatures, to this deception, because they know that if they did not, plenty more could be found who would. The result is that they are utterly at the sweater's mercy. Even the time that ought to be allowed for meals is often infringed upon. A woman who availed herself of a full hour for dinner would be liable to instant dismissal. Even the half-hour for tea is frequently denied them; the tea is put down by their side, and they swallow it as they work.

Such is the case of women working in the sweating dens. Those who work at home are scarcely better off. They must, through the constant pressure of this foreign competition, labour from dawn till late at night to procure the barest subsistence, a subsistence not sufficient to keep them in health and strength. One wretched garret is all they can afford. Here they labour, and live, and die—no one heeding. In the winter they do without fire, and often the workers put on their backs, for the sake of warmth, the garments they are not actually engaged upon. Oftentimes it is not the woman alone, but her whole family who have to share this single room. It is impossible for a woman, working these excessive hours, to keep the room clean; and the consequence is that, especially in hot weather, it becomes infested by vermin, which find their way into the garments in process of making. The takers-in of the work in the larger houses, it is stated, kill the worst of these vermin with their shears as they examine their garments!

Few of us would consider that any sum could compensate for such grinding toil under such awful conditions. Yet what do these poor women get for their labour? I have already quoted the case of a girl who earned from 3s. to 8s. a week for over thirteen hours a day; but many girls in the East End factories do not earn more than 2s. or 3s. a week! Working by the piece, a woman is paid 5d. for making a vest; 7-1/2d. for making a coat. She can by fifteen hours' work make four coats in a day, which comes to 2s. 6d.; but out of this has to be deducted 3d. to a button-holer for making the button-holes, and 4d. for "trimmings," which means fire, ironing, and soap, all necessary for her work. A boy's knickerbocker suit is made at prices varying from 4-1/2d. to 10-1/2d. complete, according to the amount of work. For a suit made at 9d. the sweater gets 1s. 3d., leaving him a profit of 6d. Before destitute immigration set in, in such a volume, and prices were consequently higher, such a suit would have been sold at 3s. 6d., which would have admitted of a larger profit, and consequently higher price for labour. Other prices are—a shirt, sold in a shop for 7s. 6d., is made for 1s.; and men's trousers are made outright at as low a price as 4-1/2d. per pair. The price paid by a sweater to a woman for machining trousers, runs from 1-1/4d. to 3-1/4d. per pair, and out of this she has to find cotton and "trimmings." If she does this at home she pays 2s. 6d. a week for the hire of a sewing-machine. The "finishers," as the women are called who press the garments, put on the tickets, and generally make them ready for sale, are paid from 2d. to 2-3/4d. a pair; but they lose a good deal of time in getting their work examined, and have frequently to stand three or four hours at a time. It is an invariable rule that no seats are provided for women when they take their work to the sweaters. If the examiner finds the first two or three pairs of trousers faulty, he will not go through the whole work, but throws them at the unfortunate woman, and tells her to take them back and alter them. In this way she loses two days in doing one day's work.

Shirt-makers who make by machine the common kinds of shirts, are paid 7d., 8d., and 9d. per dozen shirts for machining. They can machine 1-1/2 dozen sevenpenny shirts in a day, by working till midnight and later. The shirt-finishers, who make the button-holes by hand and sew on the buttons, get 3d. a dozen shirts, finding their own cotton, and can finish 1-1/2 dozen to 2 dozen in a day. Silk mantles, costing in the West End shops from £1 to £25, are made throughout in the East End for 7-1/2d. apiece, out of which the sweater pays the actual maker 5d. The common mantles are made at 5d. apiece; price to the worker, 3d. to 3-1/2d. Bead-trimmings are made by girls who, working twelve hours, earn from 8d. to 1s. 2d. per day. Mackintoshes are made at from 10d. to 1s. apiece.

Mrs. Killick, a trouser-finisher, told the Sweating Committee that she could not make more than 1s. a day, working from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. She had a sick husband and three children, and out of her earnings she paid 2s. a week rent. She chiefly lived on tea and a bit of fish. What a glimpse of patient heroism and noble self-denial does the evidence of this poor woman afford!

Five or six years ago these women made nearly double; the competition chiefly caused by the influx of cheap labour from abroad, has reduced prices some 40 or 50 per cent. Now, even the miserable wages earned are irregularly paid. The sweaters frequently keep their workers waiting for their money, and the more disreputable ones will cheat them out of their just dues. Work too is precarious; there are slack times during the year, when the workers may be idle for weeks together; yet they must still pay rent, and keep body and soul together—if they can. And this brings me back to the proposition from which I started.

How body and soul are kept together in the case of girls under such circumstances as have been detailed, it is not difficult though very painful to imagine. Working from dawn till night in hideous filth and squalor unutterable, for a wage which does not suffice to buy the barest necessaries (a wage cut down ever lower and lower by the fierce competition from the shoals of destitute foreigners landed in London week by week), hundreds, nay thousands of young women—Englishwomen, our sisters—eke out their wretched earnings by means of the street. The Pharisee and the Self-righteous pass by on the other side and condemn them; but it is not these poor unfortunates who are to be condemned, but the system which makes such a state of things possible. The Vicar of Old Ford, in his evidence before the House of Lords' Committee, mentioned cases he knew of where young girls of thirteen, who work in this cheap tailoring trade, were leading an immoral life.

In one instance, two sisters, one twelve and the other ten years of age, had already embarked upon a life of shame. One of these girls had been sent out by her stepmother, because the family "had to live."

Another instance, if possible more horrible still, was related to me by a clergyman in the East End of London, of a case which had come under his notice, though not before it was too late. It was that of a woman, an Englishwoman, a seamstress, who with her husband was engaged in the cheap tailoring trade at the usual sweating prices. All went fairly well for a time, for the two were able by their united efforts to earn a living, and to maintain themselves and their little children in a state of comparative decency and comfort. But one winter the husband, never a strong man, fell ill and died. The wife laboured on, managing by some almost superhuman effort to earn enough for herself and the children, and to keep body and soul together. Then the slack time, so greatly dreaded by all those engaged in the "sweating trade," came on, and there was nothing to be done for weeks and weeks. In despair this woman, who had hitherto led a blameless life, took to the streets. "It was wrong," the moralist and purist will say, "wrong and reprehensible to the last degree. Is there not the workhouse for such people, is there not parochial relief, are there not charitable agencies, free dinners, clothing clubs, district visitors without end? Could she not have applied to one of these instead of drifting into sin?" It may be so. All that I know is, that she and her children were starving, and that the sin brought its own punishment, for the poor woman never recovered from the horrors of that awful winter. The shame of it all seemed to settle on her as a blight, and the following year she died, broken-spirited, and broken-hearted, one more victim sacrificed to this infamous system of starvation prices and ruinous competition.

Most of the English girls to be seen at night in Oxford Street and the Strand, to say nothing of their even more degraded sisters in Whitechapel, are, or have been, tailoresses. How these poor creatures manage to exist at all, even when they eke out their wretched earnings by the price paid for their dishonour, it is not easy to see. The key of the mystery is to be found in their mutual help of one another. Even amid all their degradation and shame, many of them retain that divine instinct of self-sacrifice which in all ages has been the noblest part of womanhood. Dim it may be and undeveloped, but still it is there, evidenced daily by many little acts of kindness, many little generous deeds towards those who are more miserable and more suffering than themselves. "It is mostly the poor who help the poor." I will go further and say, it is mostly the wretched who help the wretched, for between them exists that intimate knowledge of each other's sorrows which is the truest bond of sympathy. Under happier circumstances these poor women might have lived honest and virtuous lives. As it is, they have to work side by side with men of all nationalities, under unhealthy and objectionable conditions—conditions subservient of all sense of decency. This, combined with the utterly inadequate wage, naturally leads to immorality, with its attendant satellites of drunkenness, disease, and death. Thus the burden of wretchedness and crime goes on, ever increasing in volume and intensity. How can it be otherwise when the ranks of the lost in our large cities, are thus being continually recruited from within and from without? Every now and then the public conscience is startled by the news of some awful tragedy—some poor creature done to her death in Whitechapel. It is but a bubble bursting on the surface, which oozes up from the black depths of vice and misery beneath.

One of the most potent causes of this vice and misery is undoubtedly the unlimited pouring in of destitute and objectionable foreigners. Again I ask, Can nothing be done to rescue these women—our sisters—from the attendant horrors of this fierce and degrading foreign competition? Can nothing be done to place the price of their labour upon such a level as to enable them by honest work to lead virtuous and happy lives?

Usque quo Domine? Lord, how long? Such is the bitter cry of the workwomen in East London.

[CHAPTER VII.]
THE SANITARY DANGER.

The sanitary conditions amid which the great majority of these alien immigrants labour and live may truly be described as appalling. It is a remarkable thing that just as the lower organisms of animal life are capable of living under circumstances which are intolerable to higher organisms, so can these people exist—and even to a certain extent thrive—in an atmosphere and amid surroundings which to the more highly-developed Englishman and Englishwoman mean disease and death. Cleanliness and sanitation are peculiarities of Western rather than of Eastern nationalities. When Peter the Great went back to Russia after his famous visit to London two centuries ago, he left behind him such a filthy habitation, that the cleansing of it had to be defrayed by an especial grant from the Exchequer. This is a matter of history; and if rumour is to be believed, a similar experience in connection with the visit of an Oriental potentate has occurred in very recent years. If this sort of thing is incidental to the visit of Eastern Princes, how much rather then is it liable to accompany the wholesale inundation of poor and degraded foreigners, who flock into London and our large cities from every country in Europe?

In treating of this sanitary aspect, in order to avoid any possible charge of exaggeration, I prefer to quote the statements of unimpeachable authorities rather than to advance any theories of my own. The surroundings amid which these people are content to labour and to live are deplorable and filthy beyond description. To quote from the Majority Report of the Sweating Committee—a Report which has been attacked because of the undue moderation of its language, and which certainly cannot be said to unduly exaggerate the evil:—

"Three or four gas-jets may be flaring in a room, a coke fire burning in the wretched fire-place, sinks untrapped, closets without water, and, altogether, the sanitary conditions abominable. A witness told us that in a double room, perhaps 9 feet by 15 feet, a man, his wife, and six children slept, and in the same room ten men were usually employed, so that at night eighteen persons would be in that one room. These witnesses alluded to the want of sanitary precautions, and of decent and sufficient accommodation, and declared that the effects of this, combined with the inadequate wages earned, had the effect of driving girls to prostitution."

The state of the sweaters' dens in East London is revolting beyond measure, and resembles rather the description of Dante's Inferno, than the abodes of a professedly civilized people. Here is the description of one taken almost at random from a mass of evidence teeming with similar details. A Factory Inspector, who described it, says it gives a fair idea of all the rest, and he certainly ought to know, seeing that some 4000 factories and "workshops innumerable" are under his inspection. He says:—

"You find a filthy bed, on which garments which are made are laid; little children, perfectly naked little things, lying about on the floor and on the bed; frying-pans and all sorts of dirty utensils with food of various descriptions on the bed, under the bed, over the bed, everywhere; clothes hanging on a line, with nothing more than a large gas-stove with the ashes all flying about, and the atmosphere so dense that you get ill after a night's work there; and that is the reason I am deaf now."

In respect of sanitation, the foreign Jews appear to be the worst offenders. The Sanitary Committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians admit in their Report that of 880 houses visited by the inspector, 623 were defective, and below the standard required by the Local Authority. Of these no less than 341 were in Whitechapel alone. To quote a few samples:—

"In Whitechapel, some so-called 'Model Dwellings' exist, in which the drain of a water-closet had been entirely stopped up for three weeks prior to the visit of the Inspector, while two of the cellars (inhabited) were flooded with sewage, and had been so flooded for four days past. At another place, where a noxious odour had prevailed for years, the refuse which the Committee succeeded in causing to be removed from the basement room, contained among its various components the dead bodies of five cats, a dog, and a rabbit. The water-closet drains of three other houses were discovered on the Inspector's visit to have remained in a choked condition for three, five, and six weeks respectively. At a house in St. George's-in-the-East, three boot-finishers were found at work in a front basement room, while the adjoining back basement room was flooded with sewage, which forced its way up a gully supposed to be protected by a bell-trap. The cover of this trap, as is generally the case with these appliances, was absent, and thus the sewer had direct and unobstructed communication with the interior of the house."

This extract is taken bodily from the Report of the Sweating Committee of the Jewish Board of Guardians. They are writing of their own people, and are certainly not likely to exaggerate the state of affairs.

The habitations of the Italians are little better; in fact in many ways they are just as bad. The sanitary arrangements of the cheap dwellings around Saffron Hill, where the Italians mostly abound, leave everything to be desired. On this subject I had lately some conversation with an officer of the Italian Benevolent Society. He described to me a sleeping-room—it often served as a living-room as well—in one of the ordinary dwelling-houses in the neighbourhood of Saffron Hill. In this one room, neither very lofty nor very large, may frequently be found a dozen persons herded together rather like cattle than human beings, sleeping promiscuously as follows:—In one bed, or what serves as a bed, a married couple; in the next, two young girls; in a third, a single young man; in the fourth, three or four children of different ages and sexes—and so on. Owing to the lack of ventilation, and the number of human beings crowded in the room—to quote the words of my informant—"the stench was awful." The result of all this upon the victims, both physically and morally, can easily be imagined. Another instance was that given by Inspector Holland to Mr. Biron the magistrate.[20] An Italian, who was summoned for sending his little girl out begging, was traced to his home, and there the police inspector found the parents occupying a miserably furnished little apartment in Aldis Mews, with six children. The room, which "smelt horribly," contained a single bed, under which were kept the appliances for making ice-cream; and Inspector Holland also found the room to be inhabited by a dog, a cat, a monkey, and several white mice. The moral of all this is obvious, viz. that these people are able to live under conditions amid which it would be impossible for an average Englishman to exist at all. Therefore it is only one more illustration of the unfair nature of this unnatural competition.

There is, however, another point to be noted in connection with this sanitary aspect. The conditions under which work is done in the sweaters' dens, and in their homes by these unfortunate people, largely assists in the spreading of infectious diseases. I refer of course more especially to the cheap tailoring trade. Some materials carry infection very quickly. Dr. Bate, a medical officer of health in the East End of London, speaks, in his evidence before the Sweating Committee, of infection being carried far and wide by the garments being often made up in rooms where children are lying ill with small-pox, scarlet fever, and other maladies. He had seen the garments thrown over the children's beds; and a case is mentioned of a child covered with measles being wrapt up in one of the half-made garments to keep it warm. And yet the articles made under such conditions are sold in the cheap, ready-made clothes-shops all over London and throughout the provinces.

Nor are matters in the foreign quarters of the provincial towns much better. From Manchester, from Leeds, from Liverpool, from Glasgow, the same tale reaches us, of the filthy habits of these foreign immigrants, and their neglect of all sanitary precautions. For instance, at Meadow Bank, an outlying district of Winsford, there is a large colony of Poles and Hungarians. They are employed in some local salt works, and were especially brought over to England some years ago in consequence of a strike in the Salt District, and now fill the places which were formerly occupied by Englishmen. A description of the way in which these people live, will best show how impossible it is for decent English workmen to compete against them. It is best told in the words of Dr. Fox, the medical officer of the District Board of Health. In his report he writes:—

"To say that these people are living together like beasts would be an insult and a libel upon beasts. Beasts would be better provided for than are those human beings. In the first place the rooms are, without exception, overcrowded. Again, they are destitute of furniture. The beds are trays covered with filthy straw; the bed-clothing is entirely constituted of filthy sacking. The men sleep in their clothes, even in their boots. The windows are rarely if ever opened; the beds in point of fact being many of them never empty; one set of workmen occupying them by day, and another by night. The atmosphere is necessarily foul, fœtid, and pestilential to persons of ordinary susceptibilities; and yet, in the absence of larders, and kitchens, and separate living-rooms, in this fœtid, stinking atmosphere the food is stored and cooked. Arrangements for washing there are none, except the outside taps. In one room six men and one woman are sleeping, unmarried, promiscuously; and in another, a man, his wife, and daughter—fourteen years of age—were occupying one bed. Canal-boats are palaces and temples of cleanliness, comfort, and morality, compared with this horrible colony of Bohemianism."

It is not possible to say anything which would add to this tale of horror. The facts speak for themselves. Dr. Fox, though subjected to a severe examination before the House of Commons' Committee, maintained that there was not a syllable of exaggeration in his report, though in consequence of public attention having been attracted by its publication, a slight improvement had since taken place in some minor details. There was no necessity, it should be noted, for these foreigners to live in the way they did. In this instance they were paid a sufficient wage for them to exist under decent and sanitary conditions. It was simply that they preferred doing so, and were but following the instincts of a nature which had become engendered in them by long years of filthy and degraded habits. Yet it was to make room for such as these that the English workmen were ousted, and are being ousted daily, in the great manufacturing centres of Great Britain. The question is, therefore, how long are these people to be allowed to pour in upon us unchecked, bringing with them their foreign habits and customs, and living in conformity with these alone, an outstanding defiance to English law, and a serious danger to the health and well-being of the surrounding English community? Is it right or just that our people should be forced by this unnatural competition to live and toil side by side with such people, surrounded by bad light, bad air, bad food, bad water, bad smells, bad and degrading occupations—by every circumstance which depresses the vital energies, and leaves them an easy prey to pestilence? But we are told that to shut our doors upon these aliens would be to reverse England's traditions. I maintain that we have lavished sympathy enough upon them already, and that it is now necessary for us to keep a little of our sympathy for our own flesh and blood. It is impossible to over-estimate the importance of sanitation. Where it is neglected, disease and death surely follow. Doctors tell us that more human beings are killed in England every year by unnecessary and preventible diseases, than were killed at Waterloo or Sadowa, and the great majority of these victims are children. Preventible diseases, according to Sir Joseph Fayrer, still kill 125,000 per annum, entailing a loss of labour from sickness estimated at £7,750,000 per annum. "Why then," as the Prince of Wales[21] asked, "are they not prevented?"

Sanitary legislation is all very well, but it deals with effects and not with causes. Such dens as those described, not by my imagination, be it noted, but by unimpeachable authorities, are nothing less than breeding-houses of pestilence. If we swept them clean to-morrow others would soon be found as bad, for the filthy and unsanitary habits of these immigrant aliens are bred in the bone, and wherever they go they take them with them. It cannot be healthy for a nation to have such a sore as this existing in its side, yet we allow this plague-spot to continue in our midst, and to spread its contamination far and wide. If we wish to perpetuate that healthy, sturdy stock which has made England what she is, we must prevent the strain from being defiled by this ceaseless pouring in of the unclean and unhealthy of other lands. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump," and nothing is more contagious than dirty and unsanitary habits. The physical health of the people should be the first care of the State, for upon it depends not only the present, but the future, of our race. Salus populi suprema est lex—and before this inviolable law all other considerations must bow.

The Majority Report of the Sweating Committee—from which Lord Dunraven dissented—complacently recommended the more frequent use of "limewash" in the sweaters' dens and workshops where these indigent foreigners chiefly congregate. But it will require a great deal more than "limewash" to whiten this hideous evil. People who bring with them filthy and unsanitary habits are a standing source of danger to the rest of the community. Cattle from an infected district are refused admission to our ports; surely the health of even one of the meanest of our people is of more importance than many cattle.

[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE SOCIAL EVIL.

Closely bound up with the sanitary danger, indeed inseparable from it, is the social evil. The value of healthy habitations, of personal cleanliness, of pure air, of a sufficient but not exorbitant amount of work—all that in fact tends to produce the mens sana in corpore sano—all this is fully acknowledged and known; yet we freely throw open our doors to a class whose habits and customs admittedly militate against all these powerful agencies for good.

The unlimited pouring in of destitute and degraded foreigners tends both directly and indirectly to increase our national burden of pauperism, vice, and crime. With regard to the first part of this statement it is often objected that but few of these foreign immigrants come upon the rates, and that our workhouses and penitentiaries show comparatively faint signs of their presence. This is a half-truth, and like all half-truths it conceals a most dangerous fallacy. Nulla falsa doctrina est, quae non permisceat aliquid veritatis. On the surface I admit the plausibility of the objection. In Leeds, for instance, where the foreign colony has reached abnormal proportions, the total number of Jews chargeable to the common fund of the Leeds Union, at the time when particulars were furnished to the Board of Trade in the early part of this year (1891), was only 62. The numerous Jewish and Foreign Benevolent Societies and Charitable Institutions are far too careful to allow their people to come upon the rates more than they can possibly help. But that the whole tendency of this destitute foreign immigration is to force those of our English working-classes, who are in any degree affected by it, into pauperism or something worse, cannot for one moment be denied by those who have any practical knowledge of the poor in the crowded centres of population to which these undesirable foreigners flock.

In proof of this assertion, I may quote the opinion of the Mile End Board of Guardians, who believed that this destitute foreign immigration had "a deteriorating effect upon the moral, financial, and social conditions of the people." The Whitechapel Guardians of the poor also deplore the substitution of the foreign for the English population. The result, they say, is the lowering of the general condition of the people. The Hackney Board of Guardians also, after an exhaustive inquiry, arrived at the opinion that the unchecked immigration of destitute foreigners was a serious social danger, reducing wages to a "starvation point." They supported their decision by a series of practical and convincing arguments which only lack of space prevents my quoting in full.[22]

If a life of honest labour has no better reward to offer than the meagre wages and attendant horrors of the sweaters' dens, can it be wondered if in despair of earning an honest livelihood, hundreds, nay thousands, of our people are tempted to abandon the unequal struggle, and to drift into idleness, drunkenness, and vice? I have endeavoured to show in a previous chapter how this unnatural competition forces Englishwomen upon the streets; but that, alas! is not the only resultant form of vice. A great social reformer[23] once said that "he had found a man's sobriety to be in direct proportion to his cleanliness." Without admitting the universal accuracy of this opinion, there is no doubt that it contains within it the germs of a great truth. Drunkenness, that endless source of misery and crime, is not in itself so much a cause as an effect, the effect of the loss of that innate sense of self-respect which forms one of the great barriers between the man and the beast. "When we examine into the ultimate cause of a dangerous class," writes Canon Kingsley,[24] "into the one property common to all its members, whether thieves, beggars, profligates, or the merely pauperized—we find it to be this loss of self-respect. As long as that remains, poor souls may struggle on heroically, pure amid penury, filth, degradation unspeakable. But when self-respect is lost, they are lost with it. And whatever may be the fate of virtuous parents, children brought up in these dens of physical and moral filth cannot retrieve self-respect. They sink, and they must sink, into a life on a level with the sights, sounds, aye, the very smells, which surround them."

All this is true enough. But how, I would ask, is it possible for our people to maintain this precious sense of self-respect when they are forced daily and hourly into contact with those who appear to have no more idea of decency, cleanliness, and comfort than the beasts which perish? The whole physical circumstances of their lives fight against them. To the great bulk of these immigrant aliens, the word "home," that word so sacred to English ears, around which so many associations cling, has no meaning at all. They appear to have only one dominant passion, the love of gain;—not that they gain much, poor creatures, still it is there;—and in their pursuit of it they are willing to accommodate themselves to the meagre wage, the lengthy hours, and the filthy surroundings already described. With this exception they appear to be indifferent to everything which makes life worth the living, to have no happiness in the past, no pleasures in the present, no hope in the future. With our own people it is different. However degraded they may be, there exists among them the longing for enjoyment. "Not to enjoy is not to live." Moral and intellectual enjoyments many have none; and in default of these, they betake themselves to the lowest forms of animal enjoyment; snatching at their pleasures greedily, foully, all the more fiercely because their opportunities of enjoyment are so limited. Can we wonder that these things are so? Can we judge them harshly? God forbid!

A well-known social reformer, for whose work and opinions I have the greatest respect, has written:—"It is a fact apparent to every thoughtful man, that the larger portion of the misery that constitutes our social question arises from indulgence, gluttony, drink, waste, profligacy, betting, and dissipation."[25] This on the surface is true enough; but when we come to examine more closely into the problems of poverty, we shall find that though intemperance, unthrift, self-indulgence, and inefficiency are unhappily the common vices of the poor, yet these vices are not so much the causes of poverty, as the effects of it.

The Rev. S. A. Barnett, of St. Jude's, Whitechapel, who knows the East End of London so thoroughly, does not find the origin of poverty in the vices of the poor. Terrible as are the results of drunkenness, unthrift, and self-indulgence, it is not possible, if we view the facts dispassionately, to regard these as the main sources of poverty. We shall rather look upon these evils as the natural outcome of the fierce struggle for existence, which is carried on under our present industrial conditions. Morality is admittedly the truest and most real end of man, and therefore on a superficial aspect it is natural to represent the miseries of the very poor to be chiefly occasioned by their own faults. It is a comfortable view to take, for it at once lightens the responsibility of the rich man, and it salves his conscience by the specious plea that after all the poor and the wretched have brought half their troubles upon themselves; and as they have made their beds, so must they lie. But this is rather the attitude of the Pharisee than of the philanthropist, and the moral and social problems of our age and country will never be solved if approached in such a spirit.

It is a cruel and unholy thing thus to intensify the struggle for existence among our own people by the ceaseless immigration of those, who, to quote the words of the Bishop of Bedford, "are at once demoralized and demoralizing."[26] Few have had more practical experience of the crowded East End of London than Dr. Billing, and he has given eloquent testimony to the injury worked upon our own people there by this wholesale invasion. In this fierce battle for life, of what use is it to utter trite platitudes about the "survival of the fittest," since, as another great authority, Lord Dunraven, has pointed out, "the fittest in this instance are those who are able to exist upon the lowest possible diet, in the greatest possible filth, and subject to the greatest amount of hardships and misery"?[27]

Englishmen and Englishwomen were not formed thus to live, and thus to toil. They cannot do so without contracting diseased habits of body and mind—without becoming brutalized, in fact. They lose their self-respect, and go to swell that degraded class into which the weaker as well as the worst members of society show a perpetual tendency to sink—a class which not respecting itself does not respect others, which has nothing to lose and all to gain, and in which the lowest passions are ever ready to burst out and avenge themselves by frightful methods. That is why it is, at the present hour, in the crowded courts and teeming alleys of East London, there exist all the elements of something even more terrible in its way than the misery which brought about the French Revolution.

It has been said that "A great city is a great evil." But paradoxical as it may seem, it is also a great good, since it provides employment for many thousands who otherwise would starve. Still it cannot be denied that the abnormal increase of our great cities, and the gradual depopulation of our country districts, form one of the most serious social problems of our time.

There is a constant movement going on from the country to the town. This is due to many causes, one of which is undoubtedly the introduction of machinery, which, whilst lessening the work for labourers in the agricultural districts, at the same time creates an extraordinary demand for "hands" in our manufacturing centres. Another cause is the higher rate of wages, and the bustling customs of the town, which never cease to offer attractions to young people starting in life. The result of this steady current of human beings flowing away from the country to the town is disastrous to both. Every great city in England is rapidly approaching a state of congestion; and in rural places there is a great dearth of workers, the supply falling very far short of the demand. If the 30,000,000 human beings in England and Wales all had food and lodging, there would be no cause for anxiety; but a large number of them are very poor, and wholly unable to support themselves. In 1890 no less than 671,000 persons received Poor Law relief, of whom 462,000 were relieved outside, and 179,000 inside the workhouse. In London alone 5000 able-bodied men were relieved every day, at a cost to the Metropolitan rate-payers of £188,000 per year. Twenty-four out of every hundred, or nearly one quarter of those who died in London last year, died either in the workhouses, hospitals, or lunatic asylums. Therefore, considering this question of foreign immigration generally, and foreign Jewish immigration in particular, we must take into account the nature of its distribution and the gregarious habits of the Jewish immigrants. The weekly arrival of hundreds of semi-starving foreigners must of necessity have a serious effect upon our unskilled labour market in London and our great provincial cities, to which the immigrant aliens principally flock. All thinking persons will admit that it is of more importance to protect our own workmen than to preserve our traditional character for hospitality, if it can be shown—and I consider it can—that the exercise of such hospitality tends to degrade the social condition of the native workers.

Why then add to the difficulties of this problem by letting in yearly thousands of these foreigners, chiefly the "lowest class of the lowest class," who, parasites that they are, flock at once to our great centres of population, and prey upon our people, underselling their labour, and taking the bread from their mouths?

We live in the days of a great social upheaval. We hear on all sides of the great "Labour movement." What does it mean? What is at the bottom of it all? Only the desire of our labouring classes to seek for themselves some alleviation of their lot; some increased opportunity for leisure; some better remuneration for their labour; some surer provision against sickness and old age. They are seeking—not always by the best and wisest methods perhaps, but that is not their fault—how to make their lives better and broader, healthier and happier. With these desires every right-thinking man is in sympathy. The complete realization of their dream may be Utopian perhaps—I do not know. But even if it be, what is there to blame in this divine discontent?

"Unless above himself he can

Exalt himself, how mean a thing is man!"

How are these longings to be gratified?—how are they to be even partially realized, while this unchecked flood of destitution and degradation pours in upon us from abroad?

We hear much in these days of schemes for elevating and evangelizing the masses of the poor in our great cities. All honour to such schemes, whether they succeed or whether they fail, for the motive which animates them is good. But it cannot be too often insisted upon, that spiritual and intellectual necessities do not arise until some decency of physical conditions has been first attained. Among the "submerged tenth," as they have been called, decency of physical conditions will never come to pass until steps have first been taken to forbid the entrance of the unclean and unhealthy of other lands. So long as the bare struggle for existence absorbs all the energies of our very poor, they cannot be civilized.

I do not underrate the greater worth of the moral life as compared with the purely physical life; but we must begin at the lowest rung of the ladder before we can ascend to the highest. As things are, the dregs of our slum population have neither the time, the energy, or the desire to be clean, thrifty, intelligent, or moral. In our haste we must not blame them. What they want first of all is better food, and more of it, warmer clothes, better shelter, higher wages, and more permanent employment. Unless we can first assist them to obtain these material desires, all our efforts to awaken the higher part of their natures will be in vain. Some perhaps will object that many of these poor creatures are so brutalized, so criminal, so degraded, that they have no higher nature left to awaken. I do not believe it—I will never believe it. However degraded a human being may be, however handicapped from his birth by the circumstances of his life, and even handicapped before his birth by the transmitted vices of his progenitors, there still is implanted in him, dormant and infinitesimal though it may be, that spark of the divine nature which alone separates man from the beast.

In writing on the social aspect of this evil, it is well to make one's meaning quite plain. I do not of course mean to say—no one can say—that to restrict the immigration of the destitute, the criminal, or the worthless, would be a panacea for all our social ills. Far from it; but it would at least remove from their way, one of the most potent causes of degradation in the material and social condition of the poor in our large cities. Until something has first been done to check this evil, charitable agencies, religious movements, colonization and emigration schemes will be beside the mark. However much good they may do here and there—and I freely admit the amount of good that such movements have done, and are doing every day—they will fail to go to the root of the evil, since they deal with effects and not with causes; they treat the symptoms, but not the disease.

Emigration is worthless while this continuous influx is allowed to go on. At the best, emigration is a drastic remedy only to be applied in the last resource. If, like the Great Plague, or Fire of London, emigration carried off the diseased, or swept away foul and unhealthy tenements, it might possibly be regarded with more complacency. But under existing circumstances this is just what emigration does not do. We must bear in mind that we can no longer draft off our social failures to other countries. Even our colonies now refuse to take the "wreckage" of the mother country. The people we emigrate now, are just those we can least afford to lose. And there is another consideration. Of the thousands we emigrate yearly, most are men, young, healthy, and vigorous. Of the women, all—or nearly all—are virtuous and industrious. In either sex the residuum, both men and women, and more especially women, remain behind. "Bad men die, but bad women multiply," once said a lady whose name is a synonym for all that is charitable and good, when urging the advisability of giving the fallen sisterhood of our great cities a chance of beginning life over again in some new land beyond the seas. These are pregnant words, but under our present system little or no provision is made for carrying them into effect. Things have come to such a pass, that while we emigrate the flower of our population, the industrious, the vigorous, and the courageous; the feeble, the idle, and the worthless remain with us; and this undesirable increment is ever being augmented by the refuse population of other countries.

Look at it from whatever point we will, it cannot be right that these things should be.

[CHAPTER IX.]
LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

The laws and customs of Europe with regard to the treatment of destitute and undesirable immigration vary considerably. For the purpose of convenience in dealing with this aspect, the European countries may be roughly divided into three classes, (a) Those which have decrees and restrictions both for prohibiting the admission of destitute aliens, and for expelling such as have resided in their territory, when for divers reasons they should appear to be unwelcome or undesirable acquisitions. (b) Those which have laws and local regulations for the expulsion of aliens, but none prohibiting their admission into the country in the first instance. (c) Those which take no steps in the matter at all. To the first of these three classes belong Austria, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Roumania, Saxony, and Bavaria. To the second class, Spain, Sweden and Norway, Greece, Germany (all States except the two previously specified), Italy, Hungary, Servia, Montenegro, and in a lesser degree, France. To the last belong Portugal, and until the other day, Turkey. The remaining country is Russia; but having been unable to obtain any very definite information concerning it, I have hesitated to classify it with any of the above.

It will be best to take these classes and countries seriatim.

In Austria the regulations vary slightly with regard to particular provinces; but, speaking generally, special instructions have been issued to the frontier police, with the result that all vagrant aliens, deserters, suspicious-looking foreigners who are not able to give a proper account of themselves or as to the sufficiency of their means, foreign pedlars, workmen and artisans who on entrance into the country are uncertain of obtaining immediate employment, or whose papers are unsatisfactory, or whose means for travelling are insufficient—all these are at once to be refused admission, and to be turned back at the frontier. The only exception to this rule is the case of foreign day-labourers and artisans, who are entitled by reason of reciprocity to the same treatment as Austrian subjects of the same class receive in the States to which these belong, whose appearance gives rise to no suspicion, and who having regular passports are obliged, in order to return to their homes by the most direct route, to pass through Austrian territory. By the Ordinance of 1867, foreign beggars, mountebanks, singers, musicians, jugglers, rope-dancers, gipsies, and other vagrant people, proprietors of wax-works, owners of menageries and similar exhibitions, unless they have first obtained a licence to exhibit the same in the Empire, are also refused admittance and turned back at the frontier. As to continued residence, by the General Communal Laws a Commune can refuse to allow foreigners to reside in its district, if they, together with their belongings, do not lead a blameless life, or if they become a burden upon public charity. By the Banishment Law of 1871, the Communal Police are also empowered to forcibly expel from the territory all idle or vagrant foreigners, discharged convicts, and foreign prostitutes, especially if these pursue their immoral trade without strictly observing the police regulations, if they are suffering from venereal disease, if they cause a public scandal by their behaviour, or if they seduce young people. Such, in brief, are the laws which regulate and restrict alien immigration in the Austrian Empire, as distinct from the kingdom of Hungary.

Through the courtesy of M. de Bille, the Danish Minister at the Court of St. James's, who kindly procured for me from Copenhagen a copy of the Decree of 1875, and other law-records, I have been enabled to make a detailed study of the laws of Denmark which bear upon this question.[28] The law of 1875, containing the regulation in force in regard to foreigners and travellers in Denmark, is a very drastic one. Briefly summarized, it amounts to this. The status and liberties of the foreign workman or servant, employed or seeking employment in Denmark, are defined with very great attention to detail; the most uncompromising regulations are laid down for the prevention of the entry of all foreigners who may be found destitute of sufficient means for their support; and even of those who are in search of work under any circumstances, except under strict conditions. The first Article contains a positive prohibition against the admission into the country of foreign gipsies, itinerant musicians, leaders and exhibitors of animals, acrobats and jugglers, who seek to gain a livelihood by vagrant performances. Foreigners in search of work are not admitted, except on the condition that they are provided with a document of identity from a public functionary. From the succeeding Articles of the same law it appears that foreigners who are not possessed of any claim for maintenance in Denmark, and are destitute of the means of subsistence, are to be expelled by the police, and the method of expulsion is very carefully detailed. Even those who find employment are constantly under the supervision of the police, and have pass-books, which, at every change of domicile or of employment, must be visé by the police as well as by the employers. There can be no doubt that the severity of the law is very effectual in exterminating the evil against which it is aimed. On the other hand, it in no way deters considerable numbers of foreign skilled artisans from seeking and obtaining employment in Denmark, as any one with any knowledge of the country would speedily discover. The majority of such foreigners appear to be Germans.

In Belgium the measures which the Government is authorized to take with the view of protecting the country against the dangers which the presence of destitute foreigners involve, are based upon several laws and decrees which have been passed from time to time as need required. They are interesting having regard to the strikes and labour-troubles which have taken place in Belgium during recent years. By a decree of the Provisional Government of 1830, all foreigners unprovided with a Government authorization, are bound to show that they possess means of livelihood; if not, they are at once to be sent back to their own country. They are even liable to be brought before the Juge de Paix, who may condemn them to a short imprisonment, or send them to the agricultural colony of Hoogstraeten, where native vagabonds are confined while at the disposal of the Government. Since 1850, however, foreigners are not as a rule brought before the Juge de Paix, instructions having been given to the police authorities directing them to reconduct to the frontier at once, and of their own accord, any foreigner arriving in Belgium and being evidently destitute, or a vagabond. A report of the arrest and a certificate of expulsion are, in this case, addressed to the Administrator of the Public Safety, at the time when the foreigner is sent out of the country. This summary procedure is followed both in the interest of the Treasury as saving expense, and in that of the foreigners themselves, who thus escape a prolonged detention. When at a seaport, and especially at Antwerp, foreign sailors are without means of existence, the Maritime Commissaries endeavour to find them an engagement on a ship about to sail; they are only conducted to the land frontier if these efforts fail. Formerly aliens, who were arrested for not having sufficient means of subsistence, were allowed to choose the frontier by which they might leave the kingdom. Of late years, however, this right of choice has been considerably curtailed on account of the attitude assumed by neighbouring countries. These countries have not unnaturally showed a marked disinclination to becoming a sort of rubbish-heap for Belgium. Even little Luxemburg revolted at this state of affairs, and a Convention was concluded with the Grand-Duchy by which it was agreed that only natives of the country, Italian subjects or Swiss citizens (these being en route), should in future be forwarded across the Luxemburg frontier. The German frontier is now absolutely closed to destitute persons expelled from Belgian territory who are not of German nationality. Holland has also followed suit, and the Dutch authorities reconduct into Belgium by visé, a great number of aliens, transferred by prison vans to Lanaken.

The law regulating the admission and expulsion of foreigners from the Netherlands dates from 1849. Article I. of this law lays down as the first and indispensable condition on which foreigners can be admitted into the Netherlands, the possession by them of "sufficient means of subsistence, or the faculty of acquiring such means by work"; and upon the strength of this condition, and under the provisions of Article IX. of the law, foreigners found on Netherlands territory in a destitute condition and without any ostensible means of earning a living, may be expelled from the country; and, in fact, numbers of persons so situated are expelled every year. All foreigners "dangerous to the public peace" are also subject to immediate expulsion.

The law and custom in force in the petty European States of Bulgaria and Roumania is as follows. In Bulgaria the constantly increasing number of vagrants in the capital of Sophia, as well as in the coast of the Black Sea, and on the Danube, has compelled the Government of the Prince to increase the staff of police, in order, by a more extensive supervision, to put an end to the difficult position in which the Bulgarian population is admittedly placed by alien vagrancy and destitution. The police authorities are therefore bound to keep a strict watch on the strangers arriving in the country, or residing there without occupation, and to have recourse to the immediate expulsion across the frontier of the Principality of all those who are unable to afford surety of their intention to remain, or who attract notice by their destitution, suspicious character, or culpable actions. In Roumania, though there are no general Regulations existing on the subject, the invariable custom is, that persons who are evidently in a state of indigence are not admitted to the country, unless they could prove that they possessed the means of subsistence.

In the German Kingdom of Saxony, though there are no laws on the subject, it is competent for the authorities to prohibit the admission or residence of destitute aliens. In Bavaria also the competent police authorities are allowed to expel a foreigner from the kingdom if this course should appear to be of public expediency; and besides this, the Minister of the Interior is empowered to refuse entrance into the kingdom to foreigners who may be liable to become either a public nuisance or a public burden.

We now come to the second class, namely, those countries which have laws and local regulations for the expulsion of aliens, but have neither law nor custom for prohibiting their admission into the country in the first instance.

Of these we will first take Germany, including all the States with the exception of the kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony. It is held by international law, that each State has the power of expelling from its territory aliens who may have rendered themselves obnoxious or dangerous to it. Destitute persons convicted of vagabondage or begging, or who, after becoming destitute, have been unable to procure a subsistence for themselves within a period of time laid down by the police, can be placed under arrest, and be handed over to the Government police ("Landespolizei"), who in aggravated cases can consign them to the workhouse; but destitute aliens thus handed over to the police authorities, instead of being consigned to the workhouse, are as a rule expelled at once from the territory of the Empire. In the little kingdom of Würtemburg, the Royal "Oberamts" (provincial administrative authorities) have an uncontested right to expel aliens from the kingdom. This right is generally exercised when it is proved or even suspected that the alien is unable to maintain himself; nor are such aliens entitled to any relief from the communal or charitable institutions of the country.

In Sweden, by a Circular published in 1886, addressed to the Governors of the Provinces, foreigners found without resources in this country, and in a state of vagrancy, are directed to be sent back by the authorities to their own country at the expense of the Swedish Government; in case the country to which the person belongs be so situated that he cannot be forwarded there without having to wait on the road within the boundaries of any other country, due notice is given to the authorities at the place to which the person is sent. As regards the treatment of destitute aliens in Norway, should there be any found in that country, they are taken care of by the police, and forwarded to their own country, the expense being charged in the police accounts. Thus it will be seen the custom in Sweden and Norway is perfectly identical; only there is this difference in the latter country, there are no laws, Royal or municipal, which sanction the practice; it rests entirely upon custom.

The law in Spain amounts to this, that if a foreigner after due inquiry is proved to be a vagrant, he is forced to leave the country. The definition of a vagrant, according to the law of Spain is, it should be noted, as follows:—"A person who has no property or income, no habitual profession or trade, nor any known or legitimate manner of living."

In Italy no special law exists, the residence of aliens in that country being regulated by the common law; but should such persons in the same manner as indigent natives take to begging, or if they engage in no fixed or useful labour, they can be arrested as idle persons, and dealt with by the judicial authorities, who can inflict a punishment upon them, and expel them from the King's dominions. Forcible expulsion is, however, only recurred to as an extreme measure. Usually, aliens are sent back to their own country with a foglio di via, or pass.

In Switzerland the matter is met by the local enactments of the different Cantons. Minute rules are laid down as to the permit of residence to foreigners. Destitute aliens, bad characters, tramps, and suspects are liable to an imprisonment on bread and water, from four to eight days' duration. They are then conducted to the frontier and expelled.

The custom observed in Servia, Hungary, Greece, and Montenegro is all much the same. Either by penal codes, or by the unwritten, but equally stringent, law of custom, the foreigner who is found in any of these countries without visible means of subsistence, and who has no occupation, is requested to leave the country by the authorities, and should he fail to comply, he is forcibly conducted to the frontier and expelled.

The case of France, however, calls for more than passing remark in that it differs considerably from the custom in vogue in most European countries. There is no positive or direct legislation properly so called for the purpose of prohibiting aliens destitute or otherwise from entering French territory. The question of expulsion is governed by the law of 1849, which is applicable to the whole of France. By Article VII. of this law, "Le Ministre de l'Intérieur pourra, par mesure de police, enjoindre à tout étranger voyageant ou résidant en France de sortir immédiatement du territoire Français et le faire conduire à la frontière." This law, however, it should be noted, emanated from an idea of social and political protection; it had no economical design, and it does not touch the question of destination. There is a Bill at present lying before the Chamber of Deputies for the purpose of amending the law of 1849; it has been lying there five or six years, and has not yet been proceeded with. On immigration, properly so called, France has only at present legislated for her colonies on purely special points. The silence of the Statute Law on this subject is to be accounted for on various grounds. France recruits her population in other ways than by the normal growth of the inhabitants within her territory. Statistics show that of late years the number of births in France has remained stationary, but that notwithstanding this, her population has not ceased to increase; this fact being due to the influx of immigrant aliens, which is growing larger from year to year. The fact that France has become a country of immigration like America and Australia is a surprising phenomenon. "It may not be impossible," writes M. Edouard Clouet, the advocate at the Court of Paris, "that these new economical conditions will have some influence on future legislation, and call for specific measures." Such measures, however, are still in the future, and the astounding fact remains that the immigration of aliens into France is estimated at an average of about 100,000 souls per annum, while the native population is stationary, if not decreasing.

The only European country which has no law or recognized custom in dealing with destitute aliens is Portugal. Until quite recently I should have included in this category Turkey as well; but in October last (1891) the long-suffering Ottoman Government, in order to prevent the danger which would result to the public health from the influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia, resolved in future to forbid their entry into Ottoman territory. The Porte also requested the British Ambassador at Constantinople to cause a warning to be conveyed to British shipowners to refuse passages to Jewish immigrants, who will not be allowed by the maritime authorities to land. This prohibition applies not only to immigrants from Russia, but from any quarter whatsoever, whether in Western or Eastern Europe. Individuals will be allowed to pass, but not families.

On the subject of alien immigration into Russia, or the continued residence of destitute aliens therein, I have been unable to obtain any definite information. The protective policy of Russia in purging the Empire of all alien influences, whether good or bad, is well known, and needs no comment here. The expulsion of resident Germans from Russian territory unless they consent to become naturalized, and the recent edicts promulgated against the Jews, are however illustrations of my meaning. In this Russia differs from all other European countries. They are all willing to admit the desirable alien, the skilled artisan, the foreigner who is decent and law-abiding in his habits and mode of life. It is only the destitute, the vagrant, the convict, the suspect, the evil-liver that they object to. But Russia, it would seem, has a dislike to all alien influence, whether for good or for evil.

To sum up, therefore, it appears that in all European nations—with one insignificant exception—some measures, more or less drastic, are taken either for prohibiting the admission, or for the expulsion of destitute and undesirable aliens. This policy is the deliberate outcome of years of thought and legislation. It is framed in the interests of the native population in each country, and is in all cases fully in accordance with the popular will. It is generally recognized throughout Europe that it is the duty of every State to deal with its own paupers and undesirable citizens, and it is recognized also that the only way to bring about that desirable end, is by other countries politely but firmly refusing to admit them. Thus it may be safely said that in the continent of Europe all countries liable to suffer from undesirable immigration have taken steps to guard themselves against it—with one single exception.

That exception is Great Britain.

[CHAPTER X.]
THE EXAMPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.

Twenty years ago it was a common calculation in the United States that every new immigrant was worth a thousand dollars to the particular State in which he settled. A farm might be had for practically nothing by anybody who chose to apply for it. In those comparatively early days, what are now flourishing States west of the Mississippi, were then, in parts, wild unpeopled wildernesses, and the country could not afford to be very discriminative as to either the character or the means of particular immigrants. Thus for many years America was the camping-ground of the social refuse of Europe. Irish paupers driven forth by famine and political misrule went West in tens of thousands, to become, many of them, prosperous farmers and worthy citizens of their adopted country. But there came also, in almost countless hordes, immigrants of a far less desirable, and, as the sequel has proved, dangerous kind: Fenians and apostles of dynamite from Ireland; secret societies from Italy, whose gospel was murder and brigandage; Nihilists from Russia, and Socialists from Germany, driven forth almost at the point of the bayonet by their own Governments; Russian and Polish Jews, fleeing in terror before the fanatical persecution of the Czar. All this heterogeneous mass of inflammable human material has at length become a standing menace to the United States, endangering her friendly relations with foreign countries, as well as the freedom her own people enjoy under their present form of government. Of course there were compensating advantages, but the evil of unrestricted immigration has of late years reached such an extent that the old sturdy race, the descendants of the English Puritans, who made the great Republic of the West, have been in danger of being gradually swallowed up by foreign-born populations.

In a certain sense it may be said that the history of immigration into the United States has been synonymous with the history of the nation itself; but it is evident to all unprejudiced minds, that the motives which induced those early immigrants, the Pilgrim Fathers, to leave their native land and settle in the New World, were very different from the motives which actuate the greater numbers of those who are pouring into the United States at the present day. In fact, the time from the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers down to the year which witnessed the inauguration of the first President of the United States, may not unfitly be regarded not as the period of immigration, but of colonization. Since then the rapid growth of the population—though of course largely due to natural causes—has been greatly accelerated by immigration.

Immigration into the United States appears to come in tidal waves. It has its flood and its ebb; but each decade, with the exception of the war period, shows that the new flood is higher than its predecessor. The magnitude of this influx of alien immigrants is best shown by the Annual Reports which have been issued by the late Board of Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York. Without troubling my readers with unnecessary statistics, I may say briefly from calculations which have been made, the total number of immigrant aliens who arrived at the port of New York from the 5th May, 1847, until the 31st December, 1890 inclusive, was 10,050,936. It should be noted that at least two-thirds of the whole number of alien immigrants who come to the United States from other countries, arrive at the port of New York.

This large influx has arisen from a variety of causes. One of the most potent undoubtedly has been steamship solicitation. A regular "brokerage" business has gradually been established. Some of the steamship companies have as many as two thousand agents in Europe, and their sub-agents and solicitors are to be found in every district on the Continent. These sub-agents receive liberal commissions, varying from fifty cents to two dollars for each immigrant passenger obtained. This naturally leads, not only to their selling the tickets which are required, but also to their endeavouring to create a fresh demand by solicitation and inducement. These agents picture in the most glowing terms to the poor peasants of Europe the future which awaits them in the New World. On the strength of the false representations made to them, the peasants are often induced to sell out their little homes, and to spend a life's savings in the purchase of a through passage to America. Oftentimes they will even borrow money for the passage at a ruinous rate, and the agents will advance the tickets, taking a mortgage of whatever property is of value for payment. In some cases the money is refunded, but in most cases the agent becomes the owner of the property by foreclosure; and the poor peasants in a few months find themselves and their families in a strange land, without money, friends, or employment. Upon arrival, they are taken in charge by a "labour boss," who herds them together in a tenement house, and hires them out at wages he dictates, and which he shares with his victims. Abundant evidence was given before the Select Committee of the House of Representatives, recently appointed to inquire into immigration, as to the truth of these statements. For instance, it appeared that one combination in Galicia induced 12,406 emigrants to emigrate to the United States within the period of fourteen months.

Another and more indirect cause is the fierce competition which rages among the steamship lines and the different railroads. In 1888 a war of rates broke out among them, so that in that year an emigrant could travel from Liverpool to Chicago for ten dollars, or about two guineas in English money. This low rate offered exceptional facilities to foreign governments, poor-law guardians, and charitable institutions, to rid themselves of the burden of persons unable to support themselves and their families, by simply purchasing for them tickets, and shipping them off to America. The chief offender in this respect appears to have been the British Government; and the Poor Law Guardians in Ireland, who by the Land Act of 1881 were advanced money to assist emigration, especially from the poorer and more thickly populated districts of Ireland. Various charitable societies in Europe and the United Kingdom were no less active. The so-called "Tuke Committee" assisted over 8000 persons to emigrate from Ireland in three years, 1882-85. The Prisoners' Aid Society also assisted convicts to emigrate, while the Central Emigration Society and the Jewish Board of Guardians established in London, have both been active in sending their paupers, and the least desirable portion of the population, to America. Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, and Germany also help to swell this alien invasion—Germany more especially with regard to that most undesirable class of emigrants, liberated criminals and discharged convicts. There exists, for instance, in Munich, a society with several branches, especially formed for the purpose of enabling discharged convicts to begin life over again in some far-off land, and the land almost invariably selected is the United States.

Another method of evading the Contract Labour Law, and of drawing large numbers of immigrants to the United States, is the systematic advertising for labourers by employment agencies through the British and European newspapers. From evidence which came before the Select Committee investigating at Boston, it appeared that the Freestone Cutters' Association of New England had advertised in the English and Scotch papers for journeymen, agreeing to pay fifty cents per hour for work. The applicants were directed to call upon the agents signing the advertisement in London. These agents made no contract with the men, and so evaded the letter of the Contract Labour Law; but they came to New England on the representation that employment should be found. As the freestone cutters in England only get tenpence an hour, or about twenty cents in American money, the prospect of largely increased wages naturally induced many of them to go over to America. This is only one instance out of many; and to quote the Immigration Committee's Report, "Where good wages are paid, advertisement abroad has become of common occurrence; the workmen here are thereby brought to terms, or the market becomes overflooded with labourers, and wages are reduced." In connection with this must also be considered the immigration coming into the United States over the Canadian border. During the last six months of 1890, it is estimated that over 50,000 European immigrants landed in Canada, and reached the United States, coming by this circuitous route to avoid inspection. There is also another point to be noted, viz. that large numbers of Canadians come into the United States for work, wages being 40 per cent. higher in the United States than in the Canadian provinces. Several hundreds of these people cross over the border from Windsor to Detroit every morning, and find employment in the stores, seed-houses, and so forth, and return to their homes every evening.

So much for the causes which have led to this wholesale invasion. We will now consider its undesirable results. The effect of immigration upon American labour is especially marked. As was shown by the Report of the Ford investigation of 1888, the pauper and lower classes of Europe have crowded into the American factories to such an extent, that in many of the large industries, notably the cigar trade, tailoring trade, and the shirt manufacturing trade, what was fifteen years ago 90 per cent. American and 10 foreign, is now 90 per cent. foreign and 10 per cent. American. Frequently upon differences arising between employers and employed as to the price of wages, foreigners were imported to take the place of American workmen, and the wages were consequently reduced. In fact, the tendency of foreign immigration is constantly to lower the standard of wages which the American labourer has hitherto enjoyed. The only persons opposed to restricting it are the great manufacturers and contractors, whose interest is obviously to keep the price of labour at its lowest level.

Another danger of indiscriminate immigration is plainly shown in the riots which have taken place in New York and other places during the last twenty-five years. In 1863, in the city of New York, when the famous draft riots took place, no American dared to display the flag of his country without running the risk of having his house burned and destroyed. Recent outbreaks of Nihilists, Anarchists, and Socialists, in the city of Chicago, and the still more recent lynchings at New Orleans, are further illustrations of my meaning. This political danger is deepened by the short period of time in which immigrants may become eligible for citizenship, and thus invested with political power. In several States the immigrant is admitted to citizenship after only one year's residence, and while he is still to a great extent ignorant of the laws, language, and customs. The right of citizenship thus conferred is very liable to be abused. American politicians, like other politicians, are very prone to yield to their prejudices without sufficiently regarding the interests of the people at large. The German vote in many localities controls the action of political leaders on the liquor question. The Irish vote favours, and largely influences, the policy of antagonism to Great Britain.

The social effects of this increasing immigration are also very strongly marked. There is an abnormal representation of the foreign poor in the workhouses and penitentiaries of the United States; and there can be little doubt that the effect of deporting to America the destitute, the worthless, and the criminal, has largely added to the burden there of pauperism, vice, and crime.

How keenly alive American statesmen are to the evils which result from unrestricted immigration, is shown by a perusal of the Acts which have been passed upon the subject. The Acts, other than those regulating the immigration of Chinese labourers, are three in number, viz.:—The Act to regulate immigration approved by Congress in 1882, the Contract Labour Law of 1885, and the recent Act to amend all previous laws, which was approved by Congress on the 3rd of March of this year, and which came into force on the 1st of April last.[29] I do not propose to dwell upon the provisions of those Acts in detail; they are given in full elsewhere;[30] but section 1 of the new Act, which specifies the class of aliens henceforth to be excluded from the United States, deserves to be quoted in full:—"All idiots, insane persons; paupers, or persons likely to become a public charge; persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous contagious disease; persons who have been convicted of felony or other infamous crime or misdemeanour involving moral turpitude, polygamists, and also any persons whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come." The right of asylum to political and religious refugees is maintained intact by the insertion of a special proviso. The working of the Act is very simple. The immigrants are stopped at the port of arrival and inspected, and the steamship companies are compelled to take back at their own expense all those who are refused admission; and heavy penalties of fine and imprisonment are dealt out to those who attempt to break or to evade the law. This course of action, though it may seem to press hardly in individual cases, has been found to have an excellent deterrent effect, for as soon as steamship companies know that they bring over such passengers at their own risk, they refuse to bring them at all, and the evil to a great extent is nipped in the bud.

Now, if such measures of self-defence have become thus early in her history imperative with a young country like America, with a habitable area of more than 3,000,000 square miles, and a population of not more than 65,000,000, what are we to think of an old country like England, with an area of a little over 32,000,000 acres, and a population, according to the census of 1881, of near 25,000,000 souls—and probably of over 30,000,000 now—compelled to spend annually some £7,000,000 on the relief or support of her own three-quarters of a million of paupers—leaving her ports, more especially the port of London, free for the entrance of a huge foreign and degraded population, from every country in Europe, which statistics demonstrate to be largely on the increase?