"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.
CHAPTER