The unrestricted influx of destitute aliens into the United Kingdom is a matter which has for some time past attracted a considerable amount of public attention. Within the last few years a Select Committee of the House of Commons has inquired into this question, and has published a report acknowledging its extent and recognizing some of its evils. The Sweating Committee of the House of Lords has dealt with it indirectly, so far as it concerned the subject in hand. Trades Unions and Labour Congresses have passed resolutions condemning, in a more or less general way, the present system of unchecked and unsifted immigration. But it is only quite recently that it has advanced to a place within the realm of practical politics. Few public questions have ripened so quickly as this has done. Last year[1] it was discussed, it is true, but only in an academic way, as one of those matters which loom among "the dim and distant visions of the future." To-day it is emphatically one of the questions of the hour. The Electorate is considering it, the Press—that sure reflex of public opinion—is discussing it, and the leaders of political parties, forced by the growing pressure from beneath, are making up their minds about it.

The reasons for this are not very far to seek. Two great causes have tended to bring this question to the front at the present time. One, the recent edicts promulgated by the Czar against his Jewish subjects in Russia, edicts with which no right-thinking man can have any possible sympathy, and which necessarily have the result of driving many thousands of Russian Jews to seek their fortunes anew in other lands; the other, the action this year[2] of the United States Government, in passing a law which has had the effect of practically closing the Atlantic ports to the poorer class of aliens altogether. Now since the inevitable tendency in the movement of peoples is from East to West, and since Great Britain, after America, is admittedly the country to which the greatest portion of these Eastern immigrants come, it follows, as a matter of course, that the action of the American Government in thus shutting their doors to the refuse population of the Old World, cannot fail to have the effect of greatly intensifying the evil here. Our little overcrowded island is really the only place left for them to come—the only country among all the nations of Europe, with one insignificant exception, which has not seen fit to protect its own people against the influx of the destitute and unfit of other lands. These are the two principal causes which have forced this question to the front. There is another also which will prevent its ever again sinking into the background. It is this. The working-classes of this country, with whom rests the balance of political power, have taken the matter up, and, having once taken it up, they will not let it drop. On this I shall dwell more fully later on. I merely allude to it now, as one of the factors which will have to be considered in dealing with this problem.

In taking a general survey of the situation, the first thing that strikes one is the isolated action of England in this matter, when compared with other nations. It may be laid down as an axiom admitting of no cavil, that it is the duty of every State to deal with its own paupers and undesirable citizens; and moreover it is obvious that this desirable state of affairs can only be brought about by other countries refusing to admit them. This common-sense view has been adopted by all other European countries, except Portugal, which has practically no immigration at all, and can scarcely, therefore, be said to count; by all our principal colonies, notably, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and Canada; by the great Republic of the United States, and in a general sense by nearly every civilized nation throughout the world. Those of our colonies which have not prohibitory statutes, have the power, and use it too, of passing restraining laws from time to time as need requires, which effectually meet the purpose for which they are enacted. All through Europe there are either laws prohibiting the admission of undesirable aliens, or the police regulations and local customs render their continued residence impossible. Even the well-to-do Englishman who goes abroad, for no other purpose than to spend his money, finds himself compelled, should he remain in one place for any length of time, to contribute, in all sorts of ways, to the taxes of the country in which he resides. Rightly so too, since he enjoys the benefit of the protection which the State affords to him. In particular instances this rule may seem to press hardly on individuals, since in Germany, for instance, even an Englishwoman who gives a few lessons in her native tongue is compelled to pay a tax upon her earnings, a tax in some cases so large as to make the pittance she obtains hardly worth the earning. Yet those aliens who are sent to us from other countries—I speak now of the destitute and unfit—contribute nothing to our taxes, nothing to our national welfare, nothing to our national defence; they take everything and give nothing in return, even worse than nothing, since their habits and their customs exercise a most injurious effect upon the English community with whom they come in contact.

What then can be urged against England following the example of other countries in this matter? Nothing but a mere sentiment that she is a country free and open to all, and that all who will should find a refuge upon her hospitable shores. This is a sentiment worthy of all honour, but hospitality may be carried too far, and in this instance it is not a question of its exercise, but of its abuse. There is a homely maxim that "Charity begins at home," and if this be true of individuals it is no less true of nations. The first duty of the father of a household is towards his own family. He must not give bread to others while his own children are starving. He must not give shelter to the stranger, and drive his sons and daughters out into the cold. In the same way, the first duty of a nation is to its own kith and kin. It must not open its arms to the surplus population of other lands, while its own people are clamouring in vain for work. Yet this is the case, and while every day destitute aliens are pouring in, Englishmen are driven from the land of their birth to make room for them. Speaking last year at Liverpool, upon the subject of our rapidly-increasing population, Lord Derby is reported to have said that "Emigration is the only palliative." On all subjects connected with population Lord Derby is a great authority; but of what avail, I would ask him, is it to recommend emigration as a panacea for our social ills, when for every hundred of our people taken away, a leak remains behind by which thousands more of an immeasurably inferior calibre come pouring in, by whom the conditions of existence are made harder than before, and the standard of comfort and decency in the home-life of our people is infinitely lowered? As illustrative of this it may be mentioned that at Leeds, where there is a very large and increasing foreign colony, some £500 was spent in 1887 in emigrating English children to Canada; and evidence was given before the Sweating Committee to the effect that one day a party of 500 emigrants, mostly young men in the full prime of their health and vigour, sailed out of Tilbury Docks, and at the same time another vessel, having on board 700 foreigners, came in. Truly, we are an eccentric nation!

It was George Cruikshank who in allegory drew a map of England with a board on a pole stuck in the centre, and on it the following notice to Europe, "Rubbish may be shot here." It was a caricature, and like all caricatures subject to exaggeration, but it contained within it the germs of a great truth. But even Cruikshank little dreamed that these people would ever arrive here at the rate of 40,000 and 50,000 per annum. Had he done so the notice would rather have run, "No admittance." "Oh," but I hear some say, "you would check this influx, but what of the people we emigrate to other countries?" I would answer that there is no just or fair comparison to be drawn between the people we send away, chiefly young and able-bodied men, and the wretched, under-sized, destitute immigrants we gain in exchange. As things are at present all schemes of emigration and colonization, however well-meaning, are beside the mark. We are drawing out of the barrel and pouring in at the top. More than that, we are drawing out good wine and pouring in bad. It is idle to talk of reprisals, because, as I have already pointed out, other countries have taken steps to guard against this evil. No other civilized nation will take our paupers, our criminals, our lunatics, our outcasts. Why then, in the name of common sense, should we be compelled to take theirs?

Many attempts have been made to confuse this simple issue. Many red herrings have been drawn across the track. It has been said, without one jot or tittle of evidence, that this demand for some moderate measure of restriction, veils behind it a desire to check foreign immigration altogether. Nothing could be farther from the truth. No objection can be urged against foreign immigration as a whole, but only that part of it which exercises an injurious effect upon our own people. There are, for instance, at the present time many foreigners in England employed in different professions and vocations, as teachers of languages, clerks, waiters, cooks, artisans, and so forth. These are in no sense an evil, for they supply a felt want, and are decent and cleanly in their habits and mode of living. Many of them are gradually absorbed into our national life, and become good and useful members of the community. The skilled labourer, the decent artisan, the man with brains to work, or with money to spend, is always welcome to our shores.

Such were the Huguenots. They had not much money, perhaps, but they brought with them something more precious than mere wealth,—the brain, the bone, the muscle, and the manufacturing talent of France. They introduced into England arts and manufactures hitherto unknown, and they added to the lustre of their adopted country by contributing to the science and the literature of the day. They were in fact the fine fleur of the French nation.

A similar influx was that of the Flemings, which took place at an earlier period of England's history. The Flemings, who introduced into our country the finer kind of weaving, first came to England during the reign of Edward III. The weavers of England were then unable to produce any of the better kinds of cloth, and the difficulties and expense of having to send abroad whenever any material was required superior to the coarse home-made product were necessarily great. Under these circumstances, it was obviously a wise policy of the English king to induce the Flemish weavers to come over to England, and to bring their looms with them. The high wages offered, and the prospect held out of ample employment, soon brought large numbers. A like policy was pursued by several of the other English kings who reigned during the period which elapsed between the death of Edward III. and the accession of Edward VI., and there was from time to time a considerable influx of skilled artisans of all classes. In the reign of Edward VI. it appears however that public opinion had veered round. The influx of Flemings and of foreigners generally had become so considerable, that there was a general agreement on the part of the native-born population that it was no longer necessary to hold out inducements to foreign craftsmen, since their presence in large numbers destroyed the demand for good English work, and acted detrimentally upon the interests of English tradesmen. Accordingly we find the citizens of London petitioning the Privy Council to put a stop to this foreign influx, but the only result appears to have been that an estimate, or census, was taken of all the foreigners then resident in London.

One must not infer, however, from the case of the Flemings that the advent of the foreigner was always welcome, or that the outcry against him in the reign of Edward VI. was a new thing. The history of the alien in Great Britain has yet to be written, and space does not permit of its being dwelt upon to any great extent here. Yet in looking back upon the legislative enactments of the Plantagenets and early Tudor kings, which have been briefly referred to elsewhere,[3] one cannot but be struck at the way in which popular opinion—of which these acts were doubtless the outcome—wavered on this subject. The generous treatment accorded to the Flemings and other skilled foreign craftsmen who came to England from time to time contrasts strangely with the harshness with which foreigners were treated at other times. In 1155, for instance, there was an anti-foreign outcry, and many foreigners—in fact all that could be found—were first plundered of their worldly goods, and then banished from the kingdom. Later on they were allowed to return, though still compelled to suffer certain disabilities. At one time the popular prejudice against foreigners was so great that their lives and property were always in danger, and they suffered much unfair treatment. The wise policy of Edward III. removed many of these disabilities, and a special Act was passed in the reign of Richard II. by which they were relieved still more. These Acts were those rather of the king and the upper classes than of the common people, among whom the animus against the foreigner was still so strong that that bulwark of English liberty, trial by jury, was to the alien of no avail, since any charge brought against him, whether true or false, almost invariably resulted in his conviction by a British jury. To do away with this injustice the Enactment of 1430 was passed, which provided that an alien, if he so wished, might be tried by a mixed jury, of whom half were to be Englishmen and the other half foreigners. This singular Statute remained in force until 1870, when the Naturalization Act of that year abolished the privilege of the alien to claim a mixed jury. This Act also repealed all previous Acts except the now well-known Act of 6 & 7 William IV. cap. II., which provides for the registration of aliens, and to which further allusion will be made later on.

Harsh and unnecessary as some of the enactments which were directed against aliens during the reigns of the Plantagenet kings appear to us now, we may congratulate ourselves on the fact that even in the reigns of the Plantagenet kings our Statute Book was never disgraced by such an unjust measure as the French Droit d'Aubaine, which confiscated to the Crown the whole of the property of an alien, thus leaving him destitute in a foreign country. This Statute was repealed in 1791. It was revived by the Code Napoleon, but only for a brief space, and was finally abolished the year after Napoleon's downfall at Waterloo. The Droit d'Aubaine was of considerable antiquity, having been doubtless modelled on the alien laws of ancient Athens, under which similar confiscations of the property of an alien took place, though, in spite of the severity of their laws, the Athenians always welcomed the foreign craftsmen and the artists and skilled workmen of other nationalities. In Rome under the Republic somewhat similar laws to those of Athens existed against the alien, but with the Empire all disabilities were swept away, and Rome gladly welcomed all who ministered to her luxuries and to her pleasures.

It is hardly necessary to say that no unprejudiced person would desire England to revert to the harsh measures of the Plantagenet and Tudor kings, still less to stain her Statute Book by such a measure as the Droit d'Aubaine, however great might be the provocation. Yet the memory of those acts need not prevent us from considering dispassionately, and with due regard to the changed circumstances of our age and country, the advisability of passing some wise and judicious measure for the sifting of alien immigration at the present time. The objection to all the measures to which allusion has been made is, that they were directed against foreigners simply because they were foreigners, and not for the reason their presence militated to any considerable extent against the well-being of the English community, and certainly not because they added to overcrowding, to destitution, or to disease. The Flemings and the Huguenots have their parallels to-day in the foreign teachers of languages, in the French cooks and milliners, in the German clerks, cabinet-makers, and waiters; in the Italian cooks, manufacturers of Venetian glass, &c.; in the skilled craftsmen of whatever nationality who arrive upon our shores. Against these no reasonable objection can be urged. They are useful members of the community, we gain by their presence among us, and their advent is a welcome one. But it cannot be seriously contended that the Flemings and the Huguenots have their parallel in the destitute and degraded immigrants from East of Europe, or the vagrant and vicious aliens from the South. Whatever our sympathies towards these people may be, there is every reason why we should not welcome them here. As things are, these new arrivals add in a manner altogether out of proportion to their numbers to the miseries of our poor in the congested districts of our great towns, to which they invariably drift. There are many practical ways in which we can show our sympathy with the persecuted Russian Jews if we wish to do so, notably by combining to divert the stream of immigration from our own densely populated little island, and by helping the would-be immigrants to move on to some new land beyond the seas. This we may do; but for their own sake, and for the sake of our people, we should try to prevent them from coming here.

With an imperfect knowledge of the facts we are hardly in a position to judge of the action which the Russian Government has seen fit to take against its Jewish subjects. On the surface it certainly appears that a great wrong has been done, a wrong which is also a blunder, but we must remember that we have not yet heard what there is to be urged on the other side. We can scarcely be expected to credit without adequate proof all the hearsay tales of Russian oppression. Isolated instances do not suffice. If a Russian were to make a collection of all the instances of murder, outrage, and misery which unhappily still stain the annals of our law-courts, he would hardly present to his compatriots a faithful picture of English life. Is there not just a possibility that we may be condemning Russia on somewhat similar evidence? It is said,—one cannot say how truly,—that the system of usury and extortion practised by many of the Russian Jews upon the peasantry has, in a large measure, tended to bring about the present state of things. Again we are told that the increase of Russian Jews has of late been so rapid that there is a danger, if things go on at the present rate, of the orthodox Slavs being swamped by a section of the population little in sympathy with the Government under which they live. These are some of the reasons, we are informed, which have led to the adoption of harsh measures against the Russian Jews. On the surface such reasons seem very inadequate, and with the measures which are said to flow from them no right-thinking man can have sympathy. For her difficulties with her Jewish population Russia has only herself to thank. The long years of oppression to which they have been subjected have degraded them, until their ignorance and dislike of their masters have become a danger to the State. Anything which savours of a religious persecution is abhorrent to all liberal-minded men; and if it be true, as alleged, that the present sufferings of the Russian Jews are inflicted upon them because of their faith, then our sympathies with the victims of such an unholy persecution cannot be too great. At the same time we are not in a position to dictate to Russia. Some zealous and well-meaning people tried the experiment at a meeting at the Mansion House last year, with the result that they were virtually told to mind their own business. The "protest," however, had one unfortunate consequence. The repressive measures were made more drastic than before, and the unfortunate Hebrews, naturally interpreting the sympathy shown to them as an inducement to come here, have since arrived upon our hospitable shores in greater numbers than before. In support of this opinion may be quoted the following paragraph which appeared in the supplement of the St. Petersburger Zeitung last June.

"We hear that a charitable association has been formed, with the praiseworthy object of assisting the Russian Jews out of their present miserable situation. An opportunity is to be given them of emigrating to those countries where sympathy has been publicly expressed for them. The first thing this association intends doing is to send the Jews by Libau and Riga to London, where public opinion has clearly enough shown itself to be on their side. For this purpose four steamers are to be chartered to carry these Jews to the banks of the Thames at the lowest possible rates, and it is expected that it will take the whole of the summer to carry out this plan. The philanthropists in St. Petersburg hope that the friends of the Jews in England will give them their hearty support, and help to provide for these poor creatures when they arrive in London."

This is taking us at our word with a vengeance! Surely for the sake of these poor immigrants themselves it is high time that some means should be found to prevent their arriving here in such numbers. The miseries which many of the Russian Jews undergo in the East End of London and some of our large provincial cities must be as bad as those which they have endured in the inhospitable land from whence they came. In some cases their lot here must be even worse. Quite recently an instance of the sufferings which these poor creatures undergo came to light in Whitechapel. Adolphe Cashneer, a Russo-Jewish immigrant, was summoned before the coroner of East London[4] to give evidence as to the death of his infant child. The man, who was unable to speak a word of English, stated that he had been out of work for six weeks—he worked in the cheap tailoring trade—that the mother had received no medical attention except a midwife at confinement, no food but three-halfpennyworth of milk a day, and a share of a fowl which lasted them five days, and for which the husband had pawned his trousers. The deceased child had no clothes but a napkin to cover it. It lived only one week and then died of starvation! The doctor in describing the wretched room where these poor people lived, said there were no sheets or blankets on the bed, the mother had no proper clothing, and there was no food beyond some sour milk in a dirty glass, quite unfit for human consumption. A more impressive object-lesson of the evils of our present system of unchecked and pauper immigration than that unfolded in this tale of sordid misery it would be impossible to conceive. And yet this is by no means an isolated case. Dr. Dukes stated that he continually came across such cases. He went on to say in his evidence at the inquest:—"I continually come across such cases as this.... The poverty in the East End is terrible." Instances like this cannot but strengthen the argument against admitting destitute aliens here. Strangers in a strange land, these miserable new-comers find themselves worse off than they were before. They are not themselves benefited, and the only result is that they intensify the awful struggle for existence which is going on daily and hourly among the poor in our large cities.

It has been said that to limit this influx would be to endanger that right of asylum which has ever been one of England's boasts and glories. It is not so. Were a careful and judicious measure passed for the sifting of alien immigration, it would be quite possible to insert a clause, similar to that which has been inserted in the new American Act, which runs as follows:—"That nothing in this Act shall be construed to apply to or exclude persons convicted of a political offence, notwithstanding the said political offence may be designated as a 'felony, crime, infamous crime, or misdemeanour involving moral turpitude,' by the laws of the land whence he came, or by the court convicting."

Such is the law in the "land of the free." England, no less than America, is the home of civil and religious liberty She has great and glorious traditions; they are illustrated by her treatment of the Walloons, the Huguenots, the slave-traffic, and all political refugees from time immemorial. Yet in the past she has not hesitated from time to time to pass such laws as need and occasion required. To this the Statute Book is a witness,[5] and her traditions would not be reversed because in the present day she found it necessary, in the interests of her own people, to adopt some means for checking this latter-day invasion. What is asked for is not an offensive but a defensive measure.

England has gained much in the past by her generous treatment of political refugees. But it must be apparent to every thoughtful man that the question assumes a very different aspect when we have to deal not with the influx of a few thousands of skilled workmen at isolated periods of our history, but with the invasion of some thirty or forty thousand every year of the class which under ordinary circumstances would go to fill the poor-houses and penitentiaries of Eastern Europe. Such a constant pouring in of unskilled labour of necessity disorganizes the labour market, and compels the displacement of English workmen who are unable to compete on equal terms with rivals such as these. The results are plainly shown in the trades and districts chiefly affected. These immigrants undo by their presence in our midst all the good which our philanthropists and social reformers have been labouring for ages to create. It may be true that in the strictly legal sense of the word comparatively few of them are paupers, since, as Lord Derby has recently expressed it, "they are quite able to make their own living." But what a "living" is it? The living of a savage or a dog, and certainly not one which we like to see Englishmen or Englishwomen degraded to, or forced into competition with, in the land that gave them birth. Boast as we may of the succour which we are ever ready to afford to the oppressed ones of the earth, it is obvious that we must first look to the interests of our own people. Our supineness in this matter has allowed the evil to grow to a magnitude it ought never to have reached, and thus the difficulties surrounding it have been greatly increased. The Government of the day will incur a grave responsibility if they do not speedily devote their earnest attention to this matter.

There are signs all around us that before long something will have to be done. At a time when the country is being convulsed with conflicts of labour against capital, and when thousands of our wage-earning classes are looking in vain for work; at a time when the condition of the poor in our great cities is engaging the active attention of our philanthropists, and the columns of the press teem with appeals for the aid of the homeless and suffering; this ever-increasing addition to the ranks of our unemployed, with its inevitable tendency to aggravate our social evils, is calculated to inspire feelings of alarm and dismay among all those who have the welfare of our people seriously at heart.