This change added materially to the efficiency of this Office in view of the fact that it served as a notice to all concerned that the Bureau was earnestly supporting its force in Canada.
The change also improved conditions at the above-named ports, as it enabled the officer in charge, Assistant Commissioner John Thomas, to co-operate with the border force to greater advantage, and thus conserve to a far greater extent the excellent results attained under his efficient administration.
It has been absolutely necessary for me to apply to the Bureau quite frequently for additional medical examiners, inspectors, interpreters, and clerks, since the close of the last fiscal year, and to the prompt and satisfactory manner in which the Bureau has responded to those applications is due the remarkable showing made during the present fiscal year.
On June 30, 1902, the total force numbered 66; now it numbers 116. On careful perusal the records of admissions and rejections will be found to correspond to the force employed to deal with the situation, and the maintenance of the present grade of efficient officers along the entire frontier will enable the Bureau to deal as satisfactorily with the matter as it deals with it at United States ocean ports of entry.
During the twelve months ended to-day many persons have applied for admission to the United States via Canada whose personal appearance and general conditions should have precluded the possibility of their having been allowed to embark on any vessel designed to carry passengers under conditions of health and comfort.
It is only necessary to relate that in some instances the filthy conditions have been so abominable as to render it impossible for our medical examiners to give them the attention required by our laws and regulations. The Bureau, like myself, will have to leave it to conjecture how fellow-passengers huddled together in the close quarters of an Atlantic liner have endured the contaminating presence of such persons.
Admission to the United States has been invariably denied to such applicants, and in some instances it has been deemed unwise to return them to Canada, and deportation to Europe has been effected.
I shall not attempt to draw a picture of the situation as it now appears, for the accompanying figures are so fraught with food for reflection that embellishment would be superfluous. However, it may be well to emphasize a few of the more important features represented by these figures.
We have always contended that large numbers of aliens destined to the United States were designedly manifested to Canada, and while there has been some effort made by the steamship lines to correct this evil by refusing passage to the more obviously diseased (some 150 such refusals have been reported by all the “lines”), it is to be regretted that the improvement has not been on broader lines. I have used the words “obviously diseased” advisedly, because the decrease is most noticeable in that class of diseased persons whose ailments cannot be hidden.
For instance, during the ten months ended June 30, 1902, as many as ninety-six cases of favus were rejected at the Montreal office alone. It was at that time that the agitation on this question in Canada was kept up with considerable vigor, in view of which the weeding-out process was undertaken at ports of embarkation.