The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1892-04-09

send tickets for them. Fnlcss, then, a
change in conditions has been reached,
these people add to or wealth and
strength. He thinks such a change has
not occurred. We confess that this con
clusion by Mr.. Weber was not antici-
pated. However, his reasons are worthy
| of presentation.
Our resources have only been tapped,
not worked; the unemployed are factors
In all large populations; crowding into
cities is due to iocking from rural sec
tons, more than to immigration, for
two-thirds of the new arrivals go West,
and most of them to farms. Foreigners
furnish the larger number of inmates of
our prisons, he admits, but not because
they are foreigners, but because they are
the poorer part of population, and less
able to Withstand temptation.
Our safety lies in immigration being of
many nationalties, which here blend, the
best characteristics of each being re-
tanned. He opposes Chinese immigra-
ton because it is all from one nationality,
and unassimilative; but this is true in no
other case, and we are not in danger of
being Germanized, or Frenchifed or
EuropeaniZed. Consular inspection at
ports of departure he does not regard
with favor; because it is not practicable
and he does not believe that it will do any
real sitting. Detection of the prohibited
classes is, he says, as easy here as abroad.
Character the foreign local authorities
cannot be compelled to certify to, and as
they desire to retain the good and send
out the bad, their certificates to the Con-
suls are of small value. But if we wish
to restrict immigration regardless of
quality, Consular inspection will accom-
plish it.
He suggests that we perfect present
weak statutes; set up rigid inspection at
our ports; guard our frontiers jealously,
especially the Canadian border; compel
steamship companies to pay the cost of
returning the rejected immigrant; make
sub-agents of carriers responsible for
sale of prepaid tickets they sell so per
cent. of them; hold all aliens up, to their
requirement of citizenship, liable to COM
pulsory return to the country whence
they came; expel those whom we find
were convicted of crimes abroad; apply
the same rule to those convicted here,
after serving sentence, and also to all
alien paupers as soon as they become
such. Foreign Governments return
Americans as soon as they fall into
pauperism, or are convicted of crime, and
we should reciprocate.
He objects strongly to radical and
wholesale exclusion because we need the
supply, since Americans do not raise
families and even foreigners here for
considerable period discover that with
us 1t is not considered the proper thing
to be bothered with children. He de-
clares that if we deducted from the in
crease of population for the last decade.
as shown by the new census, the number
of immigrants and their increase after
landing, during that decade, our boast of
growth in population would be changed
to a wall.
These are the views of a thoughtful
man whom the Government sent to
Europe to study the question. With all
his conclusions we cannot agree, and
some of his arguments are susceptible.
we think, of refutation. But these things
are not to be treated until sketch of the
views of Mr.. President Smith are given,
and until they are compared with those
of Mr.. Weber that treatment must be
reserved.