TIDE OF IMMIGRATION

Northern Advocate, 25 November 1925, Page 10

TIDE OF IMMIGRATION

j PROBLEMS OF POPULATION.

I NEED FOR INTERNATIONAL THINKING-.

The restriction of immigration by J the United States points clearly to one j of the most formidable problems which confronts humanity today. There is no doubt that the United States was right in determining to limit and control the immigrant tide which was flowing towards its shores, declares the leader-writer of the Christian Science Monitor. No nation, however prosperous and patriotic can assimilate more than a certain proportion of new immigrants. It is not that they may come to be a glut upon the labour market, or that they will not become loyal and indeed enthusiastic citizens of their new home. It is that a healthy nation requires that its citizenry should have an understanding and a sympathy with the fundamental, moral and political ideals which lie at the root of its life, a condition of affairs that, can only 1 be brought about by gradual degress.

THE SIMPLER WAY. Moreover, the evidence goes to show that the effect of the war on Europe was to produce in millions of people a strong desire to strike their tents, and move away from intolerable conditions of the war-ravaged Continent. It seemed far simpler to emigrate to a new land than to endeavour to grapple with apparently insoluble problems which confronted them on every side. Had no restrictions been established a movement might have gathered headway which would have caused an immigration into the United States far greater than even j the maximum figures before the war. Limitation and control were obviously required. But the effect of restriction on Europe has manifestly been prodigious. In 1913 1,19.5,000 people migrated to the United States, and in earlier years the number had been still higher. That figure fell away to a little more than 100,000 in 1918, the last year of the war. It rose to 800,000 in 1921, fell to 357,000 in 1923, the second year of the quota, is now 164,000, and after 1927 will be 150,000, subject to certain additions for dependants and relatives, who are supplementary to that number In other words, Europe has now every year to absorb or place elsewhere a million of its children who before the war went to the United States.

INTENSIFIED SENTIMENT. It has to deal with the problem, too, under extremely unfavourable condi-

tions. The war multiplied the politi- i •eal divisions in Europe and intensi- J fied national sentiment and exclusive' j ness. Not only is it far more difficult i for Europeans to go to the United | States, it is far more difficult for them j to move about Europe itself, while ! the other new lands, such as Aus- | tralasia and South Africa, have fol- j lowed the American example in being j far more careful of whom they admit i ! than .they .used to be. The conse- j quence is not only that there- have > accumulated at the ports of Europe j | pathetic aiid miserable collections of i I waifs and strays of humanity, unable | jto cross the seas, yet unable to go I ; back to their native lands, but also | that labour and population is becom- i j ing increasingly badly distributed inj j Europe itself. There is an excess of i i labour in one country and a deficiency ! I in the next, an evil which is aggravatjed by tariffs and other impediments | to development and trade. , Up to the present no solution has been found. In Great Britain the number of unemployed lias risen to more than 1,250,000. In Italy, where the emigration quota has fallen from more than 250,000 in 1913 to less than 4000, a temporary relief has been found by a large migration to France to help in the work of reconstruction. But the population of Germany, j Poland, and all the countries of 1 SountheTn and Eastern Europe is j rapidly increasing, and though there j is talk of emigration to Mexico, South I America and Australasia the stream j which goes out there is nothing like I sufficient to make up for that which | previously went to the United .States I and has now been cut off. ' This question of population is simp- '» ly one more instance of the fact ! which most obviously stares humanity in the face today, that it is no longer possible for the nations to deal with their problems in water-tight compartments, and avoid reaching an adjustment of their policies so as to meet the needs of the world as a whole. It clearly ought not to be impossible for the nations to sit around a table and draw up a scheme for enj suring .a better distribution of popuI lation than there is today. There are I vast excesses of population in one | part of the globe, vast uninhabited I and undeveloped regions in another. , As one area becomes filled up it ought to be possible to divert the stream of j population to another. j There is clearly no problem which j needs- more international thinking than the problem of migration, viewed as a world problem. The pressure which underlies it has always been one of the great causes of war during all history. Unless it is intelligently studied and solved it is likely to become a cause of war again in the future. It is surely time that the great nations jof the world should give to it their serious attention sitting around a table together.