The Alien Invasion

by W. H. Wilkins

One must not infer, however, from the case of the Flemings that the advent of the foreigner was always welcome, or that the outcry against him in the reign of Edward VI. was a new thing. The history of the alien in Great Britain has yet to be written, and space does not permit of its being dwelt upon to any great extent here. Yet in looking back upon the legislative enactments of the Plantagenets and early Tudor kings, which have been briefly referred to elsewhere,[3] one cannot but be struck at the way in which popular opinion—of which these acts were doubtless the outcome—wavered on this subject. The generous treatment accorded to the Flemings and other skilled foreign craftsmen who came to England from time to time contrasts strangely with the harshness with which foreigners were treated at other times. In 1155, for instance, there was an anti-foreign outcry, and many foreigners—in fact all that could be found—were first plundered of their worldly goods, and then banished from the kingdom. Later on they were allowed to return, though still compelled to suffer certain disabilities. At one time the popular prejudice against foreigners was so great that their lives and property were always in danger, and they suffered much unfair treatment. The wise policy of Edward III. removed many of these disabilities, and a special Act was passed in the reign of Richard II. by which they were relieved still more. These Acts were those rather of the king and the upper classes than of the common people, among whom the animus against the foreigner was still so strong that that bulwark of English liberty, trial by jury, was to the alien of no avail, since any charge brought against him, whether true or false, almost invariably resulted in his conviction by a British jury. To do away with this injustice the Enactment of 1430 was passed, which provided that an alien, if he so wished, might be tried by a mixed jury, of whom half were to be Englishmen and the other half foreigners. This singular Statute remained in force until 1870, when the Naturalization Act of that year abolished the privilege of the alien to claim a mixed jury. This Act also repealed all previous Acts except the now well-known Act of 6 & 7 William IV. cap. II., which provides for the registration of aliens, and to which further allusion will be made later on.

Harsh and unnecessary as some of the enactments which were directed against aliens during the reigns of the Plantagenet kings appear to us now, we may congratulate ourselves on the fact that even in the reigns of the Plantagenet kings our Statute Book was never disgraced by such an unjust measure as the French Droit d'Aubaine, which confiscated to the Crown the whole of the property of an alien, thus leaving him destitute in a foreign country. This Statute was repealed in 1791. It was revived by the Code Napoleon, but only for a brief space, and was finally abolished the year after Napoleon's downfall at Waterloo. The Droit d'Aubaine was of considerable antiquity, having been doubtless modelled on the alien laws of ancient Athens, under which similar confiscations of the property of an alien took place, though, in spite of the severity of their laws, the Athenians always welcomed the foreign craftsmen and the artists and skilled workmen of other nationalities. In Rome under the Republic somewhat similar laws to those of Athens existed against the alien, but with the Empire all disabilities were swept away, and Rome gladly welcomed all who ministered to her luxuries and to her pleasures.

It is hardly necessary to say that no unprejudiced person would desire England to revert to the harsh measures of the Plantagenet and Tudor kings, still less to stain her Statute Book by such a measure as the Droit d'Aubaine, however great might be the provocation. Yet the memory of those acts need not prevent us from considering dispassionately, and with due regard to the changed circumstances of our age and country, the advisability of passing some wise and judicious measure for the sifting of alien immigration at the present time. The objection to all the measures to which allusion has been made is, that they were directed against foreigners simply because they were foreigners, and not for the reason their presence militated to any considerable extent against the well-being of the English community, and certainly not because they added to overcrowding, to destitution, or to disease. The Flemings and the Huguenots have their parallels to-day in the foreign teachers of languages, in the French cooks and milliners, in the German clerks, cabinet-makers, and waiters; in the Italian cooks, manufacturers of Venetian glass, &c.; in the skilled craftsmen of whatever nationality who arrive upon our shores. Against these no reasonable objection can be urged. They are useful members of the community, we gain by their presence among us, and their advent is a welcome one. But it cannot be seriously contended that the Flemings and the Huguenots have their parallel in the destitute and degraded immigrants from East of Europe, or the vagrant and vicious aliens from the South. Whatever our sympathies towards these people may be, there is every reason why we should not welcome them here. As things are, these new arrivals add in a manner altogether out of proportion to their numbers to the miseries of our poor in the congested districts of our great towns, to which they invariably drift. There are many practical ways in which we can show our sympathy with the persecuted Russian Jews if we wish to do so, notably by combining to divert the stream of immigration from our own densely populated little island, and by helping the would-be immigrants to move on to some new land beyond the seas. This we may do; but for their own sake, and for the sake of our people, we should try to prevent them from coming here.

With an imperfect knowledge of the facts we are hardly in a position to judge of the action which the Russian Government has seen fit to take against its Jewish subjects. On the surface it certainly appears that a great wrong has been done, a wrong which is also a blunder, but we must remember that we have not yet heard what there is to be urged on the other side. We can scarcely be expected to credit without adequate proof all the hearsay tales of Russian oppression. Isolated instances do not suffice. If a Russian were to make a collection of all the instances of murder, outrage, and misery which unhappily still stain the annals of our law-courts, he would hardly present to his compatriots a faithful picture of English life. Is there not just a possibility that we may be condemning Russia on somewhat similar evidence? It is said,—one cannot say how truly,—that the system of usury and extortion practised by many of the Russian Jews upon the peasantry has, in a large measure, tended to bring about the present state of things. Again we are told that the increase of Russian Jews has of late been so rapid that there is a danger, if things go on at the present rate, of the orthodox Slavs being swamped by a section of the population little in sympathy with the Government under which they live. These are some of the reasons, we are informed, which have led to the adoption of harsh measures against the Russian Jews. On the surface such reasons seem very inadequate, and with the measures which are said to flow from them no right-thinking man can have sympathy. For her difficulties with her Jewish population Russia has only herself to thank. The long years of oppression to which they have been subjected have degraded them, until their ignorance and dislike of their masters have become a danger to the State. Anything which savours of a religious persecution is abhorrent to all liberal-minded men; and if it be true, as alleged, that the present sufferings of the Russian Jews are inflicted upon them because of their faith, then our sympathies with the victims of such an unholy persecution cannot be too great. At the same time we are not in a position to dictate to Russia. Some zealous and well-meaning people tried the experiment at a meeting at the Mansion House last year, with the result that they were virtually told to mind their own business. The "protest," however, had one unfortunate consequence. The repressive measures were made more drastic than before, and the unfortunate Hebrews, naturally interpreting the sympathy shown to them as an inducement to come here, have since arrived upon our hospitable shores in greater numbers than before. In support of this opinion may be quoted the following paragraph which appeared in the supplement of the St. Petersburger Zeitung last June.

"We hear that a charitable association has been formed, with the praiseworthy object of assisting the Russian Jews out of their present miserable situation. An opportunity is to be given them of emigrating to those countries where sympathy has been publicly expressed for them. The first thing this association intends doing is to send the Jews by Libau and Riga to London, where public opinion has clearly enough shown itself to be on their side. For this purpose four steamers are to be chartered to carry these Jews to the banks of the Thames at the lowest possible rates, and it is expected that it will take the whole of the summer to carry out this plan. The philanthropists in St. Petersburg hope that the friends of the Jews in England will give them their hearty support, and help to provide for these poor creatures when they arrive in London."

This is taking us at our word with a vengeance! Surely for the sake of these poor immigrants themselves it is high time that some means should be found to prevent their arriving here in such numbers. The miseries which many of the Russian Jews undergo in the East End of London and some of our large provincial cities must be as bad as those which they have endured in the inhospitable land from whence they came. In some cases their lot here must be even worse. Quite recently an instance of the sufferings which these poor creatures undergo came to light in Whitechapel. Adolphe Cashneer, a Russo-Jewish immigrant, was summoned before the coroner of East London[4] to give evidence as to the death of his infant child. The man, who was unable to speak a word of English, stated that he had been out of work for six weeks—he worked in the cheap tailoring trade—that the mother had received no medical attention except a midwife at confinement, no food but three-halfpennyworth of milk a day, and a share of a fowl which lasted them five days, and for which the husband had pawned his trousers. The deceased child had no clothes but a napkin to cover it. It lived only one week and then died of starvation! The doctor in describing the wretched room where these poor people lived, said there were no sheets or blankets on the bed, the mother had no proper clothing, and there was no food beyond some sour milk in a dirty glass, quite unfit for human consumption. A more impressive object-lesson of the evils of our present system of unchecked and pauper immigration than that unfolded in this tale of sordid misery it would be impossible to conceive. And yet this is by no means an isolated case. Dr. Dukes stated that he continually came across such cases. He went on to say in his evidence at the inquest:—"I continually come across such cases as this.... The poverty in the East End is terrible." Instances like this cannot but strengthen the argument against admitting destitute aliens here. Strangers in a strange land, these miserable new-comers find themselves worse off than they were before. They are not themselves benefited, and the only result is that they intensify the awful struggle for existence which is going on daily and hourly among the poor in our large cities.

It has been said that to limit this influx would be to endanger that right of asylum which has ever been one of England's boasts and glories. It is not so. Were a careful and judicious measure passed for the sifting of alien immigration, it would be quite possible to insert a clause, similar to that which has been inserted in the new American Act, which runs as follows:—"That nothing in this Act shall be construed to apply to or exclude persons convicted of a political offence, notwithstanding the said political offence may be designated as a 'felony, crime, infamous crime, or misdemeanour involving moral turpitude,' by the laws of the land whence he came, or by the court convicting."

Such is the law in the "land of the free." England, no less than America, is the home of civil and religious liberty She has great and glorious traditions; they are illustrated by her treatment of the Walloons, the Huguenots, the slave-traffic, and all political refugees from time immemorial. Yet in the past she has not hesitated from time to time to pass such laws as need and occasion required. To this the Statute Book is a witness,[5] and her traditions would not be reversed because in the present day she found it necessary, in the interests of her own people, to adopt some means for checking this latter-day invasion. What is asked for is not an offensive but a defensive measure.

England has gained much in the past by her generous treatment of political refugees. But it must be apparent to every thoughtful man that the question assumes a very different aspect when we have to deal not with the influx of a few thousands of skilled workmen at isolated periods of our history, but with the invasion of some thirty or forty thousand every year of the class which under ordinary circumstances would go to fill the poor-houses and penitentiaries of Eastern Europe. Such a constant pouring in of unskilled labour of necessity disorganizes the labour market, and compels the displacement of English workmen who are unable to compete on equal terms with rivals such as these. The results are plainly shown in the trades and districts chiefly affected. These immigrants undo by their presence in our midst all the good which our philanthropists and social reformers have been labouring for ages to create. It may be true that in the strictly legal sense of the word comparatively few of them are paupers, since, as Lord Derby has recently expressed it, "they are quite able to make their own living." But what a "living" is it? The living of a savage or a dog, and certainly not one which we like to see Englishmen or Englishwomen degraded to, or forced into competition with, in the land that gave them birth. Boast as we may of the succour which we are ever ready to afford to the oppressed ones of the earth, it is obvious that we must first look to the interests of our own people. Our supineness in this matter has allowed the evil to grow to a magnitude it ought never to have reached, and thus the difficulties surrounding it have been greatly increased. The Government of the day will incur a grave responsibility if they do not speedily devote their earnest attention to this matter.