spite of the efforts of missionaries and native teachers, it has never been found either in the United States or in this country, with the exception of a very few cases which prove the rule, that the native has ever been educated to a higher level of intelligence than that which may be said to be equal to the education of a white child, and like a child I strongly contend that he is happier, if the parents (i.e. in this case the Government) insist on not pampering and humouring him through any misplaced sentimentality, regarding his education as one of strict discipline accompanied by equally strict but just and humane treatment. There is no doubt that the native, like the child, has a keen sense of justice, and so long as he is at work he is happy. No saying is truer, when applied to him, than that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do,' or, in other words, if those Home politicians whose sentiments I most deeply respect desire to raise the native from his condition as a savage or a semisavage to that of civilised life they are most certainly defeating their own end by insisting on a policy which leaves the native in a state of idleness, and deprecates everything in the form of true discipline. The real friends of the native are those who have lived amongst them and know their good qualities as well as their bad, and there is no more sense in the English public being led away by Home politicians who have had no such experience than there was when the sentimental wave passed over England at the time when that very beautiful but highly exaggerated story was written known as Uncle Tom's Cabin. There are those who contend that, even in the Southern States, the negro would to-day have been far happier if left in a state of slavery, and that the evil of slavery is not that the slave suffers, but the great demoralisation of the slave owner.

EDGAR P. RATHBONE

(Late Inspector of Mines to President Kruger's Government).

THE ALIEN AND THE EMPIRE

THE report of the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration is not the first Royal Commission report that has proved a disappointment, nor is it likely to be the last. Perhaps, indeed, it may be unreasonable to regard it as a disappointment. It certainly goes farther than any official admission has ever gone before. It certainly deals with the question as if it recognised that public opinion demands some change in our system. Yet just because it goes so far, it is a disappointment that it does not go further still; just because it concedes so much to public opinion, it seems a monstrous pity that it does not propose what would really satisfy that opinion and provide us with an adequate means of checking the evil by which that opinion was provoked.

Why it does not do this is, of course, easy to understand. There was one man upon the Commission who is in earnest in his desire to get something done. This was Major Evans-Gordon, who induced the Government to set an inquiry on foot. He has worked at this question while others, in Parliament and out of it, contented themselves with talking about it. He understands the extent of the evil in all its bearings upon our national life. He has ideas about remedies for it. Opposed to him among the Commissioners was Lord Rothschild, bringing all his influence to bear in order that no check should be placed upon alien immigration at all. Between these two representatives of decided views came the other members of the Commission who were ready to be swayed either way, and whose attitude is well reflected by the report. If you were to set out all the admissions in the report which tell in favour of Major EvansGordon's view, they would form a very strong argument for doing whatever can be done to prevent the continuance of the invasion. Any one, on the other hand, who took the trouble to select the passages in which the effect of these admissions is toned down, would be able to persuade most people that there was nothing whatever to regret in our adoption of the naval lieutenant's motto,

'I am opposed to the adoption of restrictive measures because, even if they are directly aimed at so-called "undesirables," they would certainly affect deserving and hard-working men.'-Lord Rothschild's separate report.

Ut veniant omnes, in our free admission of as many aliens as choose to come.

In fact, what they give with one hand, the Commissioners take away with the other; and when we come to their recommendations, we find that they are still in this state of suspended cerebration. They bring forward a number of proposals, but they are most of them proposals which have obvious drawbacks and only problematical advantages. To set up such a system as they outline would, in the first place, cost a great deal of money. It would be well worth a great deal of money if it served the purpose which is aimed at by those of us who believe that, in the interests of the Empire as well as the nation, it is necessary to prevent any district or districts in these islands from continuing to be the sink of Europe, the dumping-ground for all the needy and unpopular elements among the populations of the Nearer East. But how far would it serve this purpose? How far would it act as a preventive? To what extent would it check the unwholesome flux by which the body politic is troubled?

It might enable us to get rid of a good many, possibly of most, of the criminal aliens who make this country the scene of their noisome exploits. It might give us more complete and more accurate information as to the numbers of the unwelcome visitors who make us their unwilling hosts. It might secure a medical examination of ships conveying immigrants less farcical than at present prevails. But, except indirectly, it could have no appreciable effect in 'restricting the immigration of destitute aliens into London and other cities of the United Kingdom,' which was the object aimed at by Major Evans-Gordon in the amendment to the Address that led to the Commission being appointed. Indirectly it is possible that it might help to check the flow at the source. If the proposed Immigration Department were actively administered, under the control of a man who meant to take his duties seriously, the agencies which organise the invasion might find the business not quite so profitable as it is now. But if the officials of the Department considered that it had been established chiefly in order to provide them with salaries and a not too arduous occupation (which seems to be the attitude of most public officials), then the organisers would keep their fingers upon the handle of the syphon and twelve batches of immigrants would continue to be shot into London every week with the same regularity as at present.

The chief difficulties which arise out of the alien flood are:

(1) The labour difficulty.

(2) The housing difficulty.

(3) The criminal difficulty.

The last of these three difficulties is the least of all, although it has been put so much into prominence during the past year. There

is, it is true, a far greater proportion of crime among aliens in England and Wales than amongst the native-born. But with crime the police, the magistrates, and his Majesty's judges are well able to cope; and, as I have indicated, the report makes suggestions which, if they be adopted with some amendment, will help us to get rid altogether of foreign criminals instead of leaving upon our shoulders the burden of supporting them constantly in gaol. It is the difficulties affecting the labour market and the housing of the labourer which demand the more anxious attention.

With regard to the labour difficulty the Commissioners find, in language which even for them is more than usually guarded, that 'it has not been proved that there is any serious direct displacement of skilled English labour.' Evidently they are not at all sure about it. Proof of direct displacement' is exceedingly difficult to get. The contention that 'alien labour is only or chiefly employed in doing work for which the native workman is unsuited, or which he is unwilling to perform,' does not deserve consideration. At all events it does not survive consideration of the most cursory kind. A statement to the effect that alien labour is only or chiefly employed in doing work under conditions which the native workman would properly reject with disgust, would come close enough to the truth. But to ask us to believe that work in the tailoring, shoemaking, and cabinet-making trades (the three in which alien labour is chiefly employed) is work for which the native workman is unsuited, or which he is unwilling to perform,' is, not to put too fine a point upon it, absurd.

Upon the unskilled labour market the Commissioners admit that the alien has a disastrous effect. Not only does 'the continuous stream of fresh arrivals produce a glut and a very severe competition,' but the aliens are compelled to submit to conditions of labour which must have some influence in producing cheapness of price.' In words more lucid, the alien in the East End both takes work away from many natives, and also lowers the price of the efforts of those natives who are still in work. In addition to this he is engaged in taking the bread out of the mouths of very many British small shopkeepers, eating-house keepers, and street traders of the costermonger class. Naturally people are more and more inclined to ask: 'Why, if we have not enough work to go round amongst our own native population, should we further reduce the amount available to them by permitting the unfair competition of masses of foreigners, whose habits at their first coming we can scarcely tolerate, and who are never likely to develop into fellow-citizens of whom Englishmen could be proud?' Yet the report does not propose any means of directly reducing this unfair competition. It merely puts on record the fact that it exists.

Mention of the habits of these people brings us to the second difficulty upon our list. It may be called either the Housing or the

Overcrowding difficulty. The presence of aliens has transformed certain areas of the East End into entirely foreign quarters. Out of these areas British workmen are driven either by landlords, lost to all sense of decency or patriotism, who find they can screw more out of the alien than out of the native-born tenant; or else by their natural repugnance to neighbours whose standard of manners and living can only be compared to that of a not very particular pig. This has the double effect of excluding a large number of natives from the districts where they have been accustomed to work, and of introducing into these districts a state of overcrowding far more dangerous to health and far more prejudicial to public decency than would exist if we had the native population alone to deal with.

The problem of our own poor is quite serious enough without any foreign complication. If the British Empire is to survive the period of crisis through which it is now passing, we must improve the lot of the mass of our people in this country so far as to enable us to breed an Imperial race. It is this thought which is at the back of most of our anxiety about the decadence of national physique; about the low ebb to which the national intelligence has fallen; about the deplorable conditions imposed upon a very large class, which are accountable for deterioration both of body and of mind. Without an Imperial race, alive to its responsibilities and fitted to discharge them, we cannot ever hope to maintain the British Empire. Without a social bond which shall ensure to all industrious members of the community a sufficiency of labour to keep them regularly employed; which shall give them a sound training in the rudiments of knowledge, and the opportunity to house themselves with due regard to the decencies of life-without such a bond we cannot hope to breed an Imperial race.

Is it not clear beyond dispute that the continual inflow of aliens who teach us nothing, who bring no wealth or spending power into the country, who cannot speak our language, who have no conception of British ideals, who turn whole districts into foreign quarters, whose view of life is utterly different from ours, who debase the conditions of existence wherever they go, and who thrive by underselling the labour of the native-born-is it not clear that this continual inflow already hampers us in the great fight we have to wage against ignorance and inefficiency with all their hateful brood, and that its hampering effect must increase in a more and more rapid ratio so long as we let it go on? In London there were in 1881 60,000 aliens; in 1891, 95,000; in 1901, 135,000; and they are arriving now as fast as ever they have arrived before; at certain seasons of the year, even faster.

Why should we allow this clog to be put upon our efforts towards a better state of national life? Lord Rothschild says that, if we refused to allow it, we should keep out 'deserving and hard-working

VOL. LIV-No. 319

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