Practical Politics; or, the Liberalism of To-day

by Alfred Farthing Robbins

XXVII.—IS FOREIGN LABOUR TO BE EXCLUDED?

Another of the remedies suggested by political quacks for depression in trade is the revival of the system of “protecting British labour” by preventing the immigration of foreigners—a process which, by the good sense of all Englishmen, has been abolished for centuries.

It is easy, of course, to take what at first sight may seem the “popular” side upon this question. There would be no difficulty in summoning a meeting of English bakers in London, and telling them that they were being ruined because German bakers are overrunning their trade; or gathering a small army of clerks, and informing them that but for foreign, and particularly German, competition, the native article would have a better chance; or assembling a serried array of costermongers, and persuading them that, if it were not for Russian, Polish, and German Jews, who swarm the metropolitan thoroughfares with their handcarts, their own barrows would attract more customers. But the whole idea of excluding foreigners because they become competitors is not merely a confession of weakness and incapacity which Englishmen ought never to make, but it is so contrary to the spirit of freedom which has been cherished in this country for ages that no Liberal ought for a moment to give it countenance.

And, to put it on the most sordid ground, where would England and English trade have been had such a principle been acted upon by other countries? No people in the world has so much benefited by freedom of movement in foreign lands as ourselves. Go where one may, he will find Englishmen to the fore—not only as traders but as workers. What they have done in the colonies and in the United States is patent to all men, but it is not alone in Saxon-speaking lands that they have flourished. If one visits Italy to-day, he will find Englishmen working in the Government dockyards; when Russia wanted railways it was Brassey and his navvies who made them, and when she needed telegraphs it was English linesmen who stretched the wires; while in Brazil on every hand Englishmen are pushing to the front. And there is a lesson to be learned from that passage in the diary of Macaulay, which records how, on a visit to France, he met some English navvies, with the leader of whom he entered into talk: “He told me, to my comfort, that they did very well, being, as he said, sober men; that the wages were good, and that they were well treated, and had no quarrels with their French fellow-labourers.”

China for a long series of ages acted upon the principle of keeping out the foreigner, and upon various pretexts we fought her again and again to secure our own admission. Japan was equally exclusive, and for a longer time; but even Japan has found out the mistake of trying to live in “a garden walled around.” As far back as the date when Magna Charta was signed, the right of foreign merchants to reside and to possess personal effects in England was recognized; and although the blindness and bigotry of succeeding times banished the Jews in one age and the Flemings in another, we long ago established the right of free entry. It is true that, in the fit of reaction provoked by the French Terror, Alien Acts were passed conferring upon the Crown the power of banishing foreigners, but these were superseded half a hundred years ago, and their revival is not to be looked for.

It may be retorted that the United States Congress has taken a different view, for, in addition to various measures adopted in recent years to prevent the immigration of Chinamen, an Act was passed in 1885 “to prohibit the importation and migration of foreigners and aliens, under contract or agreement to perform labour in the United States, its territories, and the district of Columbia.” The effect of that measure, coupled with an amending Act adopted two years later, according to English official authority, is “to subject to heavy penalties any person who prepays the transportation, or in any way assists the importation or migration of any alien or foreigner into the said countries under agreement of any kind whatsoever made previously to such importation, to perform there labour or service of any description (with a few exceptions). Masters of vessels knowingly conveying such aliens render themselves liable to fine or imprisonment, and the aliens themselves are not allowed to land, but are returned to the country whence they came.”

This law, even if it had not been rendered ridiculous by an attempt to bring ministers of religion within its scope, and even also if it had not proved practically a dead letter, does not, however, go far in the direction of excluding foreign labour. For men of all nations are as free to proceed to the United States to-day as ever they were, the only condition being that they shall not, before landing, have made themselves secure of finding work. If the same law were applied in England, and even if not a single person evaded (as it would be remarkably easy to evade) its provisions, it would not affect one in a hundred of the foreigners who come hither to compete with our own people. Does any one imagine that the German bakers and clerks and costermongers, who are now so much in evidence, have before landing entered into a contract of service?

If they have not, what further measure could be taken? Ought we to pass a law prohibiting every foreigner from landing? Should we add to it the condition that, if he will swear he is a bonâ fide traveller, he may be allowed to remain a few weeks under strict surveillance of the police, who will not only watch very carefully that he does no stroke of work while in England, but will see to it that he is promptly expelled when his time is up? Are our customs officers to search incoming ships for aliens as they do for tobacco, and is the penalty for smuggling foreigners to be the same as for smuggling snuff? The project of totally excluding foreign labour would be as impossible of accomplishment as it would be repellent to attempt.

“But,” some will answer, “is it right that we should be deluged with foreign paupers, who come upon our rates without paying a penny towards them?” That is quite another matter, and does not affect the question of foreign labour in any but an indirect way. It certainly is not right that we should be burdened by foreign paupers; and England would be acting in perfect consistence with the principles of liberty and justice if she did as the United States and the Continental countries have done, in prohibiting the landing of paupers, and insisting upon sending them back to the place whence they came. This is a matter of municipal rather than international law; and a repetition of such a scandal as that of the Greek gipsies, who were excluded from various European ports, and were yet suffered to land here and to become a nuisance and a burden, ought not to be allowed.