The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-25
Why He Opposes Movement to C0lOnize Refugees in
 Southern States
EXPERIMENT TRIED
 IN SOUTH CAROLINA
Only Belgians Now Available Are Women and Children and Men Who Are Too Old and
 Frail for the Army

Washington. December 24-(Specialo Emphatic views on immigration, in which he deprecated the movement for the i'm portation of Belgans for the south, were expressed today by Representative Bur nett to the correspondent of The Age Herald, MT. Burnett is chairman of the committee on immigration and naturaliza- ton, and is the sponsor for the immigra- ton bill passed by the House and now before the Senate, which would restrict immigration through enforcement of the so-called ''literaey test
 As a prelude to his remarks. MT Bur nett called attention to a debate in the Senate last Saturday, in which Senator Williams said that on account of letter which Mir. Burnett had written him he had very much modified his views in re- gard to letting in aliens who will flee | from the conquered countries of Europe after the war. Mir Williams said that l he was influenced in his change of opin- | ion by the arguments in the letter and l by the fact that he had more confidence in Burnett's judgment on this question than that of any member of Congress in either house.
 l Do Not Need Them
 | Mir. Burnett then branched into dis cussion of the question of securing Belgian immigrants for the south. He said:
 Tn the first place why do we need | any more immigrants? Our people have this year made nearly 17ooo.oooo bales Of cotton. That is 1000 GOO bales more than we would be able to sell at fair prices even under ordinary conditions. One re- suit of this will be that our farmers will divirsify their crops and raise more corn, hay. oats and wheat and other products of like character. The only field of op- era ton that I see for European immi- grants is to grow vegetables and fruit. Our market for these is limited and indeed our fruit and melon growers are already 1 oyerstocking the markets and making these products unremunerative
 Besides, we had an experience in the south few years ago with Belgian im- migrants which was not at all encourag- ing The state of South Carolina brought over two shiploads and tried to place them n, the farms and in the textile mills. In A short time after they arrived at least % per cent of them left the state ano went into industries up north. As a further result that state actually abol- ished the office of immigration commis- sioner which had proved so disadvan- tageous to the state.
 No Requests From Farmers
 If we were to get these immigrants and needed them on the farm there is nc law by which they could be made to stay there. I think this hysteria has beer brought about by the activity of the steamship companies and of the colcniza ton agents. I have heard no request from the real farmers of the south tc send these people.
 Why not expend this energy in trying to secure few thousand of those intelli- went, energetic northern young men whc are going each year to Canada because of the cheap lands there?
 "A few days ago an Englishman wht claimed to be from London called on m, and asked me to consent to an amend ment of the contract labor law so tha the refugee Belgians could be brought tc this country and colonized on the farms | l called his attention to the fact tha under the Belgian law all able-boded men between IS and 50 or 55 years were re. quired to do military service I said: Is it not to be presumed that those who would be desirable aliens are engaged il the war in defense of their country? Ii they are not, they are deserters and .ene gades and certainly would be no acquisi1 ton to any country. The result ther would be that we would bring to this country the aged, the infirm, the womer and children. who would be burden tc our people, who have enough worthy poor at our own doors to maintain
 'I said: If they so desirable, why