The Alien Invasion

tion. 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 ext

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 emphatica

her. 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

eneral 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 be

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 r

ould 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

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

e, the muscle, and the manufacturing talent of France. They introduced into England arts and manufactures hitherto unknown, and they added to the

ish 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 generall

gners 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 sti

us 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

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 vagran

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 i

rst 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

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 prese

ation, 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

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

t 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 w

n 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-in