Year: 1873

4 FEDERAL IMMIGRATION BUREAU


The fate of Mr. Conger's immigration bill,
which the House has rejected by decisive
vote. seems TO have been well deserved. The
only fear is that it may come up again in
more plausible shape. Nominally an Act to
promote immigration, it was designed rather
TO prevent il, or at least to hurt every inter
est of immigration, and to help only the Of
fice-seellers, whom it would have provided
with numberless fat places and possibly GER
tain railway and land companies whose profits
it would have swelled. Luckily the bill was
so clumsily drawn that had its object been
praiseworthy it could not have become prac-
teal law. One OF its provisions, as was pointed
out in the debate on its passage, is direct
usurpation of the treaty making power, If not
an impertinent interference with the rights of
foreign governments. Section made it the
duty of our consuls to inspect personally all
emigrant vessels at the port of departure, to
see that the provisions of the act were COM
piled with, or to reportatheir violation. Per
haps on American vessels such regulation
might be enforced. But how many American
vessels remain in the emigrant carrying trade
And how is the authority of our consul, sup
posing him to have the time for the personal
inspection, to be extended to foreign vessels
in foreign port If the foreign vessel re-
fused to be inspected, what thenf


Another provision of this remarkable bill, as
was mentioned in the vigorous remonstrance
of the New-York Chamber of Commerce,
aimed 20 promote immigration by driving half
of the immigrant carrying vessels out OF the
trade. No ship-owner could stand so indefinite
and arbitrary tax as the assessment provides
for in section 10, "at the expense of the vessel
"for the immediate and temporary necessities of
"those who arrive destitute" or the outlay
consequent on the Encouragement OF passenger
room and carrying space made necessary.
A voyage across the Atlantic in the steerage,
as THE TRIBUNE has repeatedly urged and
shown, can never be freed from at least the
dscomforts of limited space. What this limit
should be- in order to combine tair profit to
the ship-owner with the personal safety and
health of the passenger, has been clearly as
certained by years of experience, and has the
sanction of existing laws. That limit is far be-
low the extravagant one allotted By this BILL
which would require something like a fleet to
replace every single vessel now in the bust
ness Another section looks after the comfort
of emigrants by virtually fOrbidding that they
shall have anything TO eat after two o'clock
in the afternoon. OF the rest of the provisions
some are imIracticable, and others ridiculous,
while none afford 1.-THE of the protection
or care now furnished the immigrant by our
State laws, at a trifling cost to himself and
none at all to our own people.


We are thus particular in referring to de-
feated bill because it Is not at all impossible
that in some other shape it may be renewed
before the end of the session. In whatever
shape it comes up to supersede our State En-
igrant laws and substitute a costly, cumbrous,
and inefficient Federal machine for our present
State Commission, we trust to see it again de-
feated. The New-York Chamber of Commerce
and the Commissioners of Emigration memOri-
allied Congress against the passage Of Mr..
Congers bill and the House proceedings show
that, for the first time in many months, the
New-Yor delegation voted a unit against it..
If these three public declarations of sentiment
imply anything, they mean that public opinion In
this State, as represented by the greatest expe-
rience and knowledge of the subject, is opposed
to interference with our present State arrange
ments for the protection of emigrants. And
this for obvious reasons, the chief of which is
that for twenty-five years the State laws have
been found to give the emigrant, in the Ian
guage Of the Chamber Of Commerce, all the
"advice and assistance he may reasonably
"loOk for; and even more, inasmuch as the
Commission meets wants and troubles which.
" in his ignorance of our country, the emigrant
did not think OF and did not anticipated


To the protection of emigrants In transit on
the ocean or through the country, Federal care
may properly apply itself, and will fnd much
to do. If Mr.. Conger really has at heart the
welfare Of this important element in our ma
tional progress, he will leave our State regu-
lations alone and apply himself to secure the
adoption of that international Convention for
the protection of emigrants on shipboard,
which was drafted some years ago by the
Commissioners Of Emigration and the then
representatives of the North German Confed-
Grafton, in consultation with Secretary Fish,
and which is now in the State Department
That is his proper field Of effort that and
such Federal provision as his restless benevo-
lence may suggest in States which have made
none. But so far as its objective point is con-
cerned, immigration to the United States is
practically immigration to the State of New
York. and the State of New-York ought to be
allowed to take such measures as wisdom
suggests and experience approves TO protect
herself and these temporary wards against