THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1893.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9079, 4 January 1893, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1893.

The year 1893 has many serious problems before it. Perhaps in no pre- | vious time of the world's history have ! bo many questions of colossal social importance loomed up threateningly in the immediate future. One of these has been frequently referred to lately in our cable despatches—namely, the restriction of immigration to America, or its total stoppage for a time, as has been proposed by Mr. W. E. Chandler, the chairman of the Senate's Immigration Committee. Not only would the stoppage of immigration into the United States induce serious consequences for that nation, but the effect on Europe would, necessarily, be very great. For centuries America has been absorbing the surplus populations of almost all the countries of Europe. In multitudes of instances, those who wer6 regarded as criminals by the laws of European countries —men who were | made criminals by unjust lawswent to America and became good citizens. From Italy there has been a large stream of immigration of late years, and although, in some cases, these Italians have been undesirable citizens, in the vast majority they have been of great service, as they are frugal, temperate, and industrious. They are the best agriculturists, gardeners, and fishermen, and they have done much to promote all kinds of fruitgrowing and preserving. The crushing military system of Germany is said to have been the means of causing the large and steady immigration from Germany, but the Germans have all along been a splendid element in the population of the United States. What has been the effect of the Irish immigration is perhaps a more disputable question ; but, at all events, ib has furnished America with a large number of men who have made themselves prominent in politics and in various other ways. But what will be the effect of a stoppage of immigration to America on Europe? Population seems to bo congested there now ; and what will be the result if the safety valve which has hitherto existed is closed? Science has so far advanced that pestilence can hardly be reckoned on as a means of thinning a population, and there is only left the awful alternative of war.

Since the battle of Waterloo, no fewer than 27,000,000 of people in Europe have left their homes, broken up family ties, and sought their future in new lands. Between 1816 and 1888, 9,860,000 persons left the United Kingdom, 5,670,000 left Germany, 3,580,000 left Italy, 1,070,000 left Sweden and Norway. The destinations of European immigrants were : United States, 14,063,000; Australasia, 1,850,000; Canada, 1,767,000; Argentina, 1,530,00-3; Brazil, 888,000. Of the people leaving Great Britain, the following went to the United States : — English, 1,893,000 : Scotch, 265,000; Irish, 4,074,000. Of 1,340,000 who left France between 1840 and 1888, 320,000 went to the United States. 4,900,000 Germans emigrated between 1820 and 1887, and of this number 3,700,000 went to the United States. From Austria-Hungary, the official returns for ten years show that 274,000 persons left, and of these 227,000 went to the United States. The River Plate j has taken the largest amount of Italian ,

immigration during recent years. Between 1871-&0, the immigration into the United States amounted to 3,042,000, or at the rata of 304,200 per annum. In the years 1881-89, the immigrants were 4,792,000, or at the rate of 532,000 per annum. That is, the United States received ail annual increase to the amount of nearly the whole population of New Zealand. Now it is sought to dam back this 'stream. Such a thing cannot help having great effects upon the whole world.

The cry against immigration in America has many sources. The United States cannot yet be said to be filled up, as there are yet large tracts of unoccupied land, but undoubtedly it is the case that immigrants are not so indispensable as they once were. Besides, a great proportion of recent immigration has shown a tendency to congregate in the cities, to crowd occupations already well supplied. The immigrants also, being accustomed to a frugal style of life, a " lower" style of life, as it is called, completely beat the native Americans in the struggle, and entirely monopolise certain industries. Certain staunch Protestants are alarmed because adherents of the Roman Catholic Church constitute a large portion of the immigrants, and they say that Romanism is a power which threatens the civil and religious liberty of the country. The Prohibitionist knows that lie has few friends amongst the beerloving Germans or the whisky-loving Irish. The workingman can see in every immigrant, not an increase to the wealth and enterprise of the community, but a competitor for a strictly limited amount of labour to be done. It might be thought that there would be a powerful opposition to this feeling in the capitalists and employers of labour, who naturally see in the masses of immigrants coming into the country the means of keeping down the rate of wages and of maintaining the profitableness of the monopolies they are enabled to secure by the protective tariff. But it seems that these capitalists and employers are getting afraid that immigration means the arrival of foreign artisan agitators, who may leaven with a very . bad element the mass of American labour. It is said that at the present time there is a reserve army of three or four millions of unemployed in the United States, and capitalists and employers are beginning to fear that there may be too much of a eood tiling.

The contract labour law of 1885 has, it seems, not been much of a check, and has indeed been mischievous as leading to methods of evasion that have kept the immigrants, especially the Italians, in a kind of slavery, and have made the Italian colony||in New York a plague-spot in the city. But the ordinary law of the United States is already restrictive, as it prohibits the landing of idiots, insane, paupers, or persons likely to become a public charge, persons suffering from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, polygamists, persons who have been convicted of a felony or other infamous crime, etc. It is very difficult in practice to discriminate. Meetings have been held to agitate in favour of a stoppage of immigration, at which the prominent speakers were men who had been only a few years in the country.

The stoppage of immigration will no doubt mean that America will cease to show the rapid progress she has exhibited during the last half-century. This we can all appreciate, and we have before our eyes examples of the fact that where there is no immigration there will be comparative stagnation. It was the stream of immigration that sent the Northern States of the Union so far ahead of the Southern. But this stream will no doubt be greatly restricted, and the effects of this must be great both upon America and Europe.