RACE PROBLEMS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 77, 11 January 1928, Page 3

RACE PROBLEMS

AMERICAN MIGRATION ISSUE.

Mr Lothrop Stoddart writes with tlie force ami passion of a prophet, on tiie subject of race, but the interest oi his last book, "lie-forging America: The Problem of Immigration," which is the most interesting of them all, arises from the manner in which he sets the problem in an interpretation, or United States history—that is very illuminating. He points out (says the "Melbourne Argus ) that the American colonists at the time of the revolution, except for small groups of Dutch and Germans, were English, and though the type in the north differed greatly from that in the south, the population was united in & community oi fundamental ideals and habits of mind. They began their resistance to the Mother Country to secure what they considered the natural rights of Englishmen. There has never since been the same respect for evolutionary progress and ordered liberty in the United States as in England. To some extent the abstract principles of the French revolution took the place or British instincts. However, nationa 1 development, material and spiritual, i ill the Civil War was healthy and vigorous, and what migration there was reinforced the Anglo-Saxon ' character of the people of the United States. The Civil Wai-j Mr Stoddard regards as the crowning disaster in American history. It was a disaster with many as-1 pects; 300,000 men were killed on each side, mostly volunteers, the flower of the people. The Southern aristocracy die most vigorous and masterful stock that America (which name he uses consistently for the United States) has ever produced perished The whole, country after the war plunged into an orgy of materialism. Its intellectual, moral, and political standards went to pieces. In 1547 the tide of Celtic Irish immigration began, but until 1881) migration was from the northern Euro pear, peoples, which he regards as be longing to the fundamental strain, antt possessing the common ideals of the .American people. Then on an evergrowing scale the influx of the realh .•lien peoples from Southern Europe j;rd So.itn-western Asia, began, and this, continued, wit : i the partial interVuptiu. of the war, till it was checked by th* Johnson Migration Restriction Act o 1924. Mr Stoddard's book is a com prehensive defence of this policy. The tight is still to be waged, hotvever. for sentimentalists still maintain that the United States is the natural refuge for the'oppressed, certain business interests need cheap labour, and representatives ot the "alien'' peoples now in the United States are bitterly hostile to the new law, which Mr Stoddard regards as a great turning point in American history.