United States Immigration.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20413, 7 December 1931, Page 8

United States Immigration.

It is announced in this morning's cablo news that the tide of migration into th<; United States has turned and that for the first nine months of this year 22,000 more people left the United States than entered it; and this marks the end of one of the greatest migrations, the shortness of the period being taken into consideration, in world history. It has been estimated that during the nineteenth century 36,000,000 people migrated to - the United States, and during the decade before the war the average was about 1,000,000 a year. The turning of this tide is a sign of a profound change in American national character, for it has been turned deliberately and with the full approval of the American people. A country which, fifty years ago was proud of being the asylum of the world is now trying to stabilise her culture and save herself from the supposedly unsettling effect of an inflow of foreigners. " Much has happened," said The Times recently, "in the " seventy years between the visit in " 1851 of the Hungarian Kossuth " riding his charger, Black Warrior, up "Broadway from tho Battery like a " second Lafayette while thousands cheered, and the exclusion in 1928 " of another Hungarian, Count "Ivarolyi, without protest, save from " a handful of intellectuals." The beginning of the process of exclusion was the Act of 1924 which established immigration quotas for foreign countries and was passed mainly because of fears aroused by the rapidly growing Japanese colonies on the Pacific Coast. "When the United States began to feci | the effects of the world industrial depression, the American Federation of Labour, with doubtful logic, blamed immigration for the increased unemployment and brought pressure to bear on the Government to check it. ' As a result the administration of the 1924 Act has become more strict and it has been reinforced by other measures, the chief being the " New Consular Policy," under which consuls are empowered to refuse visas to intending immigrants liable to become a charge on the State. At the same time aliens are being summarily deported if unable to prove their right of domicile, and the Government is advertising its willingness to pay for the transportation of aliens, legally in the country, who wish to leave. The fact that, the population of the United States is now no longer increasing through immigration must be considered in conjunction with the country's birth and death rates. According to figures produced by. The Times, the birth rate in the eight years before 1930 fell from 23.7 per 1000 to 19.7 per 1000, while since 1920 the ' death rate has hardly changed at all. ' A natural increase of 10.0 per 1000 in

1920 had fallen, by 1928, to 7.3 per 1000. The American Federation of Labour professes to be satisfied ■■with the success of its agitation to exclude foreigners; but it is possible to doubt whether the Federation has considered the deeper implications of its policy. American industry is organised on the expectation of an increase of 10 to 1;> per cent, in the number of home consumers in each decade; and it is unlikely that any increase in the standard of living will be enough to offset a sudden reduction in this rate of increase. Possibly, therefore, American industry is faced with a period of painful reorganisation.