The Alien Invasion

by W. H. Wilkins

Of late years the immigration of Italians has increased to an alarming extent. London and our large provincial cities are crowded with a class of Italians who are for the most part non-producers. The Italians were amongst the earliest immigrants here, and in many respects they are the most undesirable. In this condemnation, I do not of course include those Italians who upon arriving in England take up some definite trade or employment, and who are skilled labourers, and industrious, law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately the great bulk of Italian immigrants differ widely from such as these; they are, for the most part, the idle, the vicious, and the destitute, who come here simply to pursue that nefarious course of vagrancy and begging which is now so rigidly forbidden in their native land. They bring with them slothful and degraded habits, and where they congregate to any extent, their influence upon our own people cannot fail to be otherwise than injurious.

Many of them arrive here absolutely destitute, and go at once to the Italian Consulate and beg for alms, or ask how to be put in the way of begging. The Consulate does everything in its power to discourage these people from coming to England, but they come all the same. Some of them are trained professional beggars, versed in every trick and dodge of the trade of mendicancy. Others are socialists and revolutionists of the worst type, who endeavour to use the liberty enjoyed by them here, in forming secret revolutionary societies, and in preaching the most dangerous doctrines. They work so secretly that few have any knowledge of their real influence and numbers. I am informed by an Italian gentleman, whose name I am not at liberty to give, but who has exceptional opportunities of proving the truth of his statements, that the increase of foreign and secret revolutionary societies in the Metropolis has recently been very great. The same authority writes to me in a recent letter:—"There is a large influx of destitute Italians going on: there is no work for them to do here, and they will not return home.... I believe there is a real danger in allowing aliens of all nationalities to arrive so freely in such conditions, while not socialism but anarchy is now preached in the open streets of the quarters especially resorted to by them. The result will be some serious trouble very soon, especially in winter."[12] These are not the careless words of a superficial observer, but the deliberately expressed opinion of one who holds an official position, and has intimate knowledge of the facts. With the object lesson which the recent Italian riots in the United States has presented to us, there can be little doubt that in the rapid increase of these revolutionary societies of indigent foreigners lurk the elements of a very grave political and social danger.

Thus we seem to have drifted into a position somewhat analogous to that of Rome in the closing days of her Empire. Juvenal in the second of his Satires complained that Rome had become a sink for the vices and iniquity of the known world. Johnson imitated this Satire in the following vigorous lines:—

"London, the needy villain's general home,

The common sewer of Paris and of Rome;

Condemned by fortune and resistless fate,

Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state."

Juvenal was not alone in his complaint. Horace had said somewhat the same thing before. The Satirists had certainly ample opportunities of observing the facts. When Rome was newly founded it was desirable and even necessary to encourage immigration, because citizens and soldiers were sorely needed to defend the infant State. But when Rome had advanced to the height of her Imperial power, the immense influx of foreigners attracted to the Eternal City by her wealth and by her luxury, was most calamitous. The native population of Rome were reduced to permanent pauperism, or were driven away to the colonies. The yeomanry of Italy disappeared; they took service in the Legions, and were sent away to distant settlements, their place in Rome being taken by large bodies of imported slaves, who brought with them all the habits and vices generated by long centuries of oppression and wrong. "The salvation of a country lies in its middle class." Such was the wise dictum of Aristotle; but in the latter days of the Roman Empire the middle class was wanting. How fatal was this, is clearly seen by the different powers of resistance that Rome exhibited at different periods of her history. Under the Republic, when the middle class was dominant, though Italy was several times invaded, the native population always proved too strong for the invaders. When under the latter days of the Empire the middle class was wanting, and there was nothing but fabulous wealth and prodigal luxury on the one hand, and abject poverty and consequent misery on the other, the heart of the State became corrupt; and as soon as the Barbarians had broken through the cordon of Legions at the frontier, the mighty Roman Empire sank to rise no more.

Historical parallels are often misleading, and this analogy, like other analogies, may of course be carried too far; but it is in some respects a close one. When Rome in the height of her Imperial splendour welcomed all nationalities who ministered to her profligacy and luxury, it was a sign of the canker which in time ate away the heart of the Empire. So too, England in the Victorian era—an era of prosperity unequalled even by Imperial Rome—throws open wide her arms to receive the destitute, the criminal, and the worthless of other lands, heedless of the injury which the influx of such a class must work upon her own community, and forgetful that the first duty of the State is towards its own people.

The saddest aspect of this question of Italian immigration is the traffic in Italian children, which has been for so long carried on in this country under the auspices of the padroni, and which continues to flourish despite all the efforts which have been made to check it. "Child-slavery in England" it has been called; and certainly the condition of these poor children is in many respects little better than that of slaves. I have spoken and written so much about this matter,[13] that there is little now left to be said; still, in spite of laying myself open to the charge of repeating an oft-told tale, I must needs allude to it once more, since no treatise upon Italian immigration would be otherwise complete.