now has heard of the "Chinese difficulty," which is so perplexing to American and Australian statesmen; but in reality it is only one part of a larger problem, viz., the effect on a population with a high standard of comfort of a continuous influx of persons accustomed to a lower scale of living. Thus in the United States, Irishmen were at one time objected to by a large section, and at present there is some dislike felt to the immigration of French Canadians, who, in several New England districts, form the greater number of factory hands. Italians, Russians, and Hungarians, all now contribute to the immigration, and even two small bodies of Arabs have succeeded in making their way to the United States; but against immigrants from all these nations there lies the objection that they will lower the working-class standard of comfort. For example, speaking of the Hungarians, Professor Smith says, "that they seem to be but little superior to the Chinese civilization." Once it is admitted that immigration is a suitable subject for regulation, such cases will be speedily dealt with.
(4) Another element of the question which will assuredly occupy a prominent place in future discussions, is the asserted decline in the class of immigrants even from countries that have been the main sources of emigration to the United States. Thus it is pointed out that the percentage of emigration from the western counties of Ireland is increasing, and' that these counties are also the most backward.[1]
In like manner German emigration is more largely supplied from the north-eastern, that is, the poorer and most illiterate provinces, than it used to be.
"A similar movement may be discovered in the recent statistics of Italian emigration: the movement is steadily pushing from the better regions of the north, to the poorer regions of the south."[2]
(5) But whatever be the case with purely voluntary emigration, all attempts to artificially encourage it by state grants or private benevolence, will, we may be sure, be vigilantly watched by the anti-immigrationists in every new country. The legal powers at present possessed by the Commissioners of Immigration in the United States are very feeble, the only persons with whom they can interfere, under the act of 1882, being "convicts, lunatics, idiots, or persons unable to take care of themselves without becoming a public charge;" but should any reason be given, they will assuredly be widely extended. The truth is that the interests of the country sending, and of that receiving an immigrant, are almost necessarily in some degree opposed. The former naturally wishes to get rid of its feeblest and least valuable members. The idle, vicious, and criminal, are those who can most easily be spared. But then it is precisely these classes that are the least desirable addition to the
