A SOCIAL PROBLEM AT HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 1916, 10 August 1888, Page 10

A SOCIAL PROBLEM AT HOME.

While we in Australasia are busying ourselves with the question, " What is to be " done with the Chinese 1 " there are incipient signs of an agitation at Home, prompted by the analogous question, "Wlafc " is to be done with the Russian and Polish " pauper Jews ? " Complaints have long been rife as to the influence exercised by the multiplication of destitute aliens upon the London labour market, and the well* being of the London workman ; and the evidence recently taken before two select committees — one on emigration and immigration, and the other on the sweating systemhas had the effect of drawing public attention to the matter. " A feeling that it is all " due to Ihe foreigners is the one clear " opinion which an East-end workman or " workwoman lias about the causes of " poverty," and though this feeling is an exaggerated one it is no doubt founded upon some ground of fact.' The large majority of the pauper immigrants against whose free reception protests are beginning to be raised are Jews from the Eastern part* of Europe, and very undesirable guests they seem to be. "These people," say 3 a good authority, summing up the evidence, " come to this country, bringing nothing bat " their misery with them. They are not " ill-behaved as regards the weightier matter " of conduct, though their standard of clean* " liness is immeasurably below that of the " poorest classes of this country ; their in* " dustry is indomitable, their endurance of ""hardship and privation is almost incredibly " and they work for a wage which barelj " suffices to keep English labourers from " starvation." No sheck exists to the immigration of this class, which takes place in considerable numbers e 7er ? year, thus forcing the English labours* to work for the same remuneration & his Semitic rival or to starve, and helpfoi? to produce the shocking condition of working life in the East End. of London, wind the investigations of successive commission* have laid bare to the public gaze. There are men working to-day in WhifcechapeJ a* pressers in tailoring at fche rate of one sliil' ll^ f..i- a day of 16 hours' work. Mr Arojjo White, giving evidence before m

'Sweating Committee, said " the men' •"were powerless, by combination or •«' otherwise, to diminish the degradation ' " of their lot ; if they chose to 'go elsewhere •" their places would be taken by greeners "—" — "" greeners " being the name applied to the /immigrants from Jlussia and Poland. True, •a writer in the June number of the"Con- " temporary Review" is of opinion that the .-grievance is being very much overstated, •both as regards numbers and importance, -even arguing as to the latter that the indigent alien has been a source of profit rather than a loss to the native worker. Such an argument, however, as that <v the competition " which forces down the ' slop ' tailor's earn- " ings to their mean and miserable level 11 enables the native worker to clothe himself. " at cheaper rates " is hardly suggestive of a very strong case. As regards the number of immigrants, indeed, Mr Stephen Fox, the writer in the " Contemporary," does show, so far as admittedly partial statistics may be reliable, that this has boon exaggerated, but it is not denied that the incursion is steady if not enormous. On one day of this year — May 4— no less than 200 destitutes arrived at Tilbury en route for London. Of course it is admitted that even the total exclusion of alien paupers would not put an end to the sweating system (which, indeed, prevails in trades where the competition of " greeners " is noL severe), or establish an adequate rate of wages ; the vast growth of population among the English workers themselves would alone obviate such a consummation — a consummation which the London Times thinks will not eventuate until the consumer or purchaser learns to be ashamed to expect an article at a price which he knows must entail the payment of starvation wages to the original worker. " The best way to arrest v unlimited and destructive competition is " to convince consumers that it is no good to " denounce it in the abstract if they persist in " practising it in the concrete;." Bub though unfortunately the evil is not inseparably co -existent with the foreign pauper element, it is in tho general opinion accentuated by that element. The removal of the lower standard of comfort obifcaining among the immigrants would hardly fail to have a beneficial effect upon -competitive severity, while the fact that the English worker himself attributes all his itrouble to this agency, even though his view imay in some measure partake of the merely [prejudicial and sentimental, is likely to prove ft.he strongest incentive to remedial measures •of a restrictive nature. At present England -stands alone in the perfect liberty which she .gives to all sorts and conditions of men to •enter her ports France, for instance, imposes •a landing duty, and in America no pauper isalmittcd. Mr Fox thinks it certain that Parliadncnt will not consent to prohibitive measures, ithough he admits that the workmen them•selve3 would probably " with short-sighted "policy" exclude the foreigner from their districts. It would bs unwise to act under the influence of a hurried agitation, and ib will certainly go against the grain with Knglishruon t<s~elose their doors even to the unskilled pauper ; but if the evil is really proved to be a serious and certainly increasing one, some restrictive step is probably only a matter of time. Self-preservation is still the first law of nature, and it is still bound morality that charity should begin at home. The condition of the East End of London is hardly compatible with the indulgence of an indiscriminate cosmopolitan generosity.