The case of France, however, calls for more than passing remark in that it differs considerably from the custom in vogue in most European countries. There is no positive or direct legislation properly so called for the purpose of prohibiting aliens destitute or otherwise from entering French territory. The question of expulsion is governed by the law of 1849, which is applicable to the whole of France. By Article VII. of this law, "Le Ministre de l'Intérieur pourra, par mesure de police, enjoindre à tout étranger voyageant ou résidant en France de sortir immédiatement du territoire Français et le faire conduire à la frontière." This law, however, it should be noted, emanated from an idea of social and political protection; it had no economical design, and it does not touch the question of destination. There is a Bill at present lying before the Chamber of Deputies for the purpose of amending the law of 1849; it has been lying there five or six years, and has not yet been proceeded with. On immigration, properly so called, France has only at present legislated for her colonies on purely special points. The silence of the Statute Law on this subject is to be accounted for on various grounds. France recruits her population in other ways than by the normal growth of the inhabitants within her territory. Statistics show that of late years the number of births in France has remained stationary, but that notwithstanding this, her population has not ceased to increase; this fact being due to the influx of immigrant aliens, which is growing larger from year to year. The fact that France has become a country of immigration like America and Australia is a surprising phenomenon. "It may not be impossible," writes M. Edouard Clouet, the advocate at the Court of Paris, "that these new economical conditions will have some influence on future legislation, and call for specific measures." Such measures, however, are still in the future, and the astounding fact remains that the immigration of aliens into France is estimated at an average of about 100,000 souls per annum, while the native population is stationary, if not decreasing.
The only European country which has no law or recognized custom in dealing with destitute aliens is Portugal. Until quite recently I should have included in this category Turkey as well; but in October last (1891) the long-suffering Ottoman Government, in order to prevent the danger which would result to the public health from the influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia, resolved in future to forbid their entry into Ottoman territory. The Porte also requested the British Ambassador at Constantinople to cause a warning to be conveyed to British shipowners to refuse passages to Jewish immigrants, who will not be allowed by the maritime authorities to land. This prohibition applies not only to immigrants from Russia, but from any quarter whatsoever, whether in Western or Eastern Europe. Individuals will be allowed to pass, but not families.
On the subject of alien immigration into Russia, or the continued residence of destitute aliens therein, I have been unable to obtain any definite information. The protective policy of Russia in purging the Empire of all alien influences, whether good or bad, is well known, and needs no comment here. The expulsion of resident Germans from Russian territory unless they consent to become naturalized, and the recent edicts promulgated against the Jews, are however illustrations of my meaning. In this Russia differs from all other European countries. They are all willing to admit the desirable alien, the skilled artisan, the foreigner who is decent and law-abiding in his habits and mode of life. It is only the destitute, the vagrant, the convict, the suspect, the evil-liver that they object to. But Russia, it would seem, has a dislike to all alien influence, whether for good or for evil.
To sum up, therefore, it appears that in all European nations—with one insignificant exception—some measures, more or less drastic, are taken either for prohibiting the admission, or for the expulsion of destitute and undesirable aliens. This policy is the deliberate outcome of years of thought and legislation. It is framed in the interests of the native population in each country, and is in all cases fully in accordance with the popular will. It is generally recognized throughout Europe that it is the duty of every State to deal with its own paupers and undesirable citizens, and it is recognized also that the only way to bring about that desirable end, is by other countries politely but firmly refusing to admit them. Thus it may be safely said that in the continent of Europe all countries liable to suffer from undesirable immigration have taken steps to guard themselves against it—with one single exception.
That exception is Great Britain.
[CHAPTER X.]
THE EXAMPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
Twenty years ago it was a common calculation in the United States that every new immigrant was worth a thousand dollars to the particular State in which he settled. A farm might be had for practically nothing by anybody who chose to apply for it. In those comparatively early days, what are now flourishing States west of the Mississippi, were then, in parts, wild unpeopled wildernesses, and the country could not afford to be very discriminative as to either the character or the means of particular immigrants. Thus for many years America was the camping-ground of the social refuse of Europe. Irish paupers driven forth by famine and political misrule went West in tens of thousands, to become, many of them, prosperous farmers and worthy citizens of their adopted country. But there came also, in almost countless hordes, immigrants of a far less desirable, and, as the sequel has proved, dangerous kind: Fenians and apostles of dynamite from Ireland; secret societies from Italy, whose gospel was murder and brigandage; Nihilists from Russia, and Socialists from Germany, driven forth almost at the point of the bayonet by their own Governments; Russian and Polish Jews, fleeing in terror before the fanatical persecution of the Czar. All this heterogeneous mass of inflammable human material has at length become a standing menace to the United States, endangering her friendly relations with foreign countries, as well as the freedom her own people enjoy under their present form of government. Of course there were compensating advantages, but the evil of unrestricted immigration has of late years reached such an extent that the old sturdy race, the descendants of the English Puritans, who made the great Republic of the West, have been in danger of being gradually swallowed up by foreign-born populations.
In a certain sense it may be said that the history of immigration into the United States has been synonymous with the history of the nation itself; but it is evident to all unprejudiced minds, that the motives which induced those early immigrants, the Pilgrim Fathers, to leave their native land and settle in the New World, were very different from the motives which actuate the greater numbers of those who are pouring into the United States at the present day. In fact, the time from the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers down to the year which witnessed the inauguration of the first President of the United States, may not unfitly be regarded not as the period of immigration, but of colonization. Since then the rapid growth of the population—though of course largely due to natural causes—has been greatly accelerated by immigration.