The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1929 AMERICA AND THE QUOTA

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 690, 15 June 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1929 AMERICA AND THE QUOTA

IP an amiable Frenchman, Swiss, Italian, Norwegian, or any other respectable and friendly European steps ashore at a New Zealand port, lie may be required to pay a bond of £lO to the Cutsoms officials, and is authorised to stay only six months. These provisions are mild, yet, even in their mildness, they arc a contrast with the attitude of the immigration regulations toward Americans who are permitted to come and go as they please. No bond is ever asked of them, and they may stay as long as they wish. Even as this contrasts with the attitude of New Zealand toward other aliens, it contrasts still more sharply with the attitude of Uncle Sam toward New Zealanders, who may never under any circumstances stay in the United States more than six months, unless they have made application for admission under the quota. At one stage America was in serious danger of becoming Germanised. At another, the flood of Latins was a problem. New York boasts a greater Italian population than any other city in the world, Rome and Naples included. It was to keep these great streams of immigration within safe limits that the quota system was devised and strengthened. Briefly, it consists of the application to various nationalities of a restriction based on the percentage of that race already resident in the United States. The operation of the quota was at first crude and harsh. Little or no effort was made to check the stream at its source. Only when the transatlantic liners, huddled with immigrants, arrived at the notorious depot on Ellis Island was any effort made to accept or reject. For a long time conditions at Ellis Island were a dreadful reproach, and people in a miserable state of penury suffered severe hardships. Improvements both to the depot and the system have been made in recent years, but the memory of former scandals persists and is coloured with the experiences of reputable people who, though not in the ordinary immigrant class, were thrust into foul quarters and treated with a minimum of courtesy or ceremony. English people of high degree have experienced this treatment. So have New Zealanders on the Island of Alcatrez, the corresponding depot at the Pacific end, where conditions, while never such a reproach as those at Ellis Island, were certainly not ideal. The possibility that New Zealanders visiting the United States and pei'haps nominally infringing the immigration laws ill the utmost innocence may be made to suffer degrading and even painful experiences, accentuates the one-sided character of the present arrangement. While New Zealanders extend to Americans the utmost hospitality—bestow on them, in fact, the complete freedom of these islands —not the slightest reciprocal concession is made. The New Zealander might be an Ethiopian for all the substantial benefits he gains from the hospitable attitude of his own country toward America. The subject is given a timely interest because the other day the American Consulate at Wellington issued the announcement that the New Zealand quota for the coming year, twelve months from July 1, is already practically full. New Zealanders seem to feel no deep urge to go to the United States permanently, but a few scores are drawn there annually by their interest in industrial developments or the chance of sudden fortune by get-rich-quick methods in a country that has enjoyed an unparalleled period of prosperity. The quota of New Zealanders admissible each year is one hundred, this figure including also those admitted from outlying islands under New Zealand’s control. At the moment the efflux from this country is pei'haps a little stronger than usual owing to business depression, but otherwise there is no special suggestion that the quota admissible annually is too small. Rather, it might he logically urged that the very small desire shown by New Zealanders to settle permanently in the United States justifies the removal of the quota altogether. The real hardship is occasioned when some New Zealander, for business or domestic reasons, wishes to stay in the United States more than the specified six months. It is fair to add that, when the casual visitor from these shores lands in the States, no bond is demanded unless he has travelled third class, which appears to he a paradoxical sort of demand, the bond being as high as 500 dollars —a considerable sum to anyone who has had to “travel third.” That, however, is beside the point compared with the risk that a New Zealand citizen who unwittingly overstays his leave may he cast into an American prison and treated in a manner altogether different from that in which an American under similar circumstances would be treated here. This risk is not imaginary. It is very real, as both New Zealanders and Australians have found to their sorrow. A recent example was the case of a Californian who married a New Zealand girl. The girl was found to be an unauthorised immigrant, and was given a few hours to leave the country, after a period of humiliating detention. If Uncle Sam chooses to be churlish toward his visitors, there is, of course, no remedy from this end. It is just a question of outlook and politeness. But there seems no reason why Americans should be singled out for special favour here, when no concession whatever is tendered in return.