EMIGRATION FROM BRITAIN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 24, 23 October 1907, Page 10

EMIGRATION FROM BRITAIN.

DETERIORATION OF THE RACE.

I don't think that the authorities in tho Old Country realise tho full significance of thp emigration question in Great Britain," said the Rev. A. Thomson the othor day, chatting to a Dominion interviewer about son'io impressions he had gathered while on a trip to the land of his birth. "At the present time, there has set in a great tide of emigration to the colonies, and particularly to Canada. Tho Canadian Government by liberal inducements to intending colonists is steadily draining the Old Land of the very finest industrial'stock any country could wish for. That stato of things will inevitably continue so long as the present land-monopoly in Britain is allowed to exist. And what is the result ? Well, hero h one most emphatically ovil result. Years ago, in tho colliery districts of Lanarkshire, you would sco returning, from the coal-pits great strapping young miners, sons of the nation. I didn't see those fellows when I was in that district a month or so ago. They had gone to Canada, and thoir places had been filled with gangs of small weedy-looking Poles, who had settled in tho district, and were working at reduced rates of pay. You hear a great deal of talkiabout tho adulteration of the great Anglo-Saxon population of the United States by the increasing influx of aliens. 1 tell you that the samo thing is happening in England and Scotland, and tho very people who aro for ever shrieking about the danger of alien immigration permit all sorts and conditions of foreign intruders to como in under their very noses." '

" But," said tlio reporter, " have tho tradounions nothing, to say about thoso Poles and their cheap labour ?

' "Thoy havo'a good deal to say," replied Mr. Thomson, "but their organisation is so poor that they aro practically impotent. Further, what can they possibly attempt in a country tlio Government of which is still intensely aristocratic. The spiritof Democracy, as wo know it hero, is just beginning to wake up. The solution of many evils lies in tho solution of the paramount ovil, landmonopoly. Then, and not till then, will the inllnonco of tho Democracy .be a determining factor in tlio legislation and government of Groat Britain."