HARD TIMES IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13650, 18 January 1908, Page 5 (Supplement)

HARD TIMES IN AMERICA.

According to the Bremen correspondent of a- London paper, distressing stories of a j vain struggle for existence 'in America are j told by crowds of sad-faced emigrants j streaming from the steerage decks of every arriving Transatlantic liner. The vast \ majority, according to competent assur- I ances, are arriving only with money for the barest immediate necessities. I have interviewed (says the correspondent) a number of distracted, wanderers broad-shouldered, industrious-looking Galicians, Bohemians, Poles, and Italians—who in broken English, picked up during brief sojourns in America, declared that though they were willing to do any kind of work, they had not canted a. dollar for three months. The desperate condition of the labour market was explained by one, who said that, where there was formerly employment for 5000 it was now hard to find work for 500. The heavy cost of living in America appears to have determined most of Hum to return to their turner homes, although I find that the great majority,are buoyed up by the hope of going back to the United States as soon as bettor times set in, or, as they put it, "after .a new President is elected." The North German Lloyd officials say that the German shipping lines can hardly cope with the emigrant rash from America. The arrivals at Bremerhaven totalled 3200 and 6000 more are en route on the Lloyd steamers. . . The exodus shows no signs of abatement, despite an advance in steerage rates. Emigration from Bremen has come almost to a standstill. A few weeks ago shiploads of emigrants were despatched ' to America j daily, including Sundays, but now the companies are satisfied with a fair complement in the steerage thrice weekly. "We have turned our backs on America only temporarily," say most of the emigrants arriving at, Hamburg from the United States boipid for their former homes in Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia. They assert that they find it wiser to flee from America, during the prevailing crisis, because they can live more cheaply in Europe. Nine-tenths of them declare their intention of recrossing the ocean as soon as the situation becomes normal. Others who have brought back £40 or so from America intend to begin a fresh existence in their old homes. * A Hamburg authority on emigrant problems declares that the. combined capital which the latter class represents is a considerable item, the loss of "which may easily make itself felt in the United States. The German authorities, after ,medical examiiuu (ion of the arriving emigrants, are hurrying them across country to their ultimate destination with all possible despatch, in order that a labour crisis may not be precipitated by throngs of them settling down in the Fatherland. It is estimated that 200,000 emigrants have already returned to Europe from America, and as 100,000, who were intending to go to America, will now stay at home, an alarming labour crisis is imminent.