America's Compliment to Britain

IT is not often that any nation is so blissfully uncon- scious as Great Britain appears to be of a compliment paid to her by the United States, which probably is without precedent in history. If there are few people in either country who appreciate the bouquet at its genuine value, it may be because the flattery is expressed not in the well-known language of ferns and flowers, but in the less familiar phrases of arithmetic. It is in statistics that an admiring Republic is breathing out her affection for the old country. If, then, Ideal with a theme so threadbare as immigration, it is because, at this precise moment, quotas are a thousand times more significant than cruisers.

Let us begin with a word of what assistant-professors in co-educational colleges call recapitulation.

The United States has always welcomed immigrants. She has done more welcoming than the rest of the world put together, which explains her admitted genius for hospitality. The idea that this country has ever treated mankind as British Labour treats Trotsky is contrary to the facts. But even of immigration it is possible to be satiated. In 1914 this inflow reached a net rate of 800,000 aliens a year, and it seemed almost too much of a good thing. However, the War broke out, and so, for the time being, the pressure on this Eastern seaboard was relieved.

But after the Armistice Europe seemed again to be a little tired of herself, and, making up for lost time, she began to emit her unwanted sons and daughters. The invasion of the impoverished seemed to be worse than in fact it was, because the headlines of a poetic Press announced the number of people entering at the ports, without wearying the tired business man on the subway with the number of people who, for some reason known only to themselves, were desirous of returning to Europe. In the year 1921, it looked, therefore, as if 978,163 aliens had flooded the United States, whereas 426,031 had also escaped, leaving a balance of only 552,132, which, however, was sufficiently serious. With California cursing the Asiatic, and especially the Japanese, something had to be done about it, and vainly did employers of labour, using Chambers of Commerce as a loud speaker, plead for cheap workers. The trade unions said that they would agree to tariffs on goods, provided that the capitalists agreed to quotas on aliens. And so it was arranged.

It is with quotas as with tariffs. Once start them, and you never know where you will stop. Walls erected, whether against imports or immigrants, tend to be revised upwards. Already the quota has been twice amended, and both times by restriction. In round numbers, the original schedule admitted 360,000 persons. The Act of 1924 reduced the figure to 164,000. • This year's Act continues the reduction to 153,000, which shows that hospitality, however generous, can be discriminating.

It is ' just here that such a pleasant surprise awaits the blushing Briton. For while, as we have seen, the aggregate quota has been cut by more than a half, the individual quota applicable to our excellent little island has been doubled. It sounds incredible, but like most incredibilities, it happens to be true.

The first of the three schedules is not quite conclusive. An unfortunate phrase, " the United Kingdom," was still in use, and it confused Irishmen with mere English. However, the second schedule made matters plain. The Irish Free State, with 3,000,000 citizens, was allotted 28,500 immigrants. Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with more than 44,000,000 people, had to be content with a quota of no more than 34,000. It was seeing things in perspective.

But note what has just happened over the third quota. The Irish allowance has been cut from 28,500 to under 14,000—that is, by more than a half. Even Germany, with her former quota of 51,000, has now to be satisfied with only 23,488. But the allowance for good old Britain has leaped from 34,000 to 65,000—it is nearly twice what it was. Our quota, which used to be a beggarly tenth of the whole, is now two-fifths, and is more than three times that of any other country.

The astonishing thing is that this curious change in the statistics has been effected without a whisper of audible controversy. No irate Hibernians detected therein a cunning conspiracy on the part of John Bull to kidnap Uncle Sam. Even the Germans have been acquiescent, and the Italians. whose quota is cut from 50,000 or thereabouts to 4,000, are meek as Mussolinis. What you would have taken to be the most contentious business that could disturb a government, involving not one minority but a score of them, has slipped through in silence. Realizing that what Europe means by a balance of power is here a balance of politics, and that politics is swayed by racial groups, we cannot but be amazed by the prevailing tranquillity.

One explanation may be defined as legislative incom- prehensibility. If the President and Congress had said to the Germans and the Irish and the Italians, " We are going to cut your quota," the reply would have been in those respective languages. What the President and Congress did say was that the quotas ought to be proportionate, not to the foreign-born, but to the racial origins of the whole population. Not many people had the least idea what that meant nor how it would work out. But, of course, the effect of it was to change the entire basis of the schedule. The foreign-born consist of recent immigration. The whole of the citi- zenship includes the Anglo-Saxon or Nordic mass of the people.

Then why was the artifice so quietly accepted ? Was it because the Nordics were in a majority ? On the contrary, the Nordics were divided, being Democrat in the South and Republican in the North. No, the mystery lies deeper than mere politics ; deeper even than race.

The United States is beginning to find herself. She is becoming a country, and her diverse elements are growing rapidly into a nation. It means that a family of Hellenes hears less of Athens in Greece than it hears of Athens in Georgia. So with the Irish, the Italians, the Germans. They have become American. It is in terms of America first that they are thinking. It may be selfish, but it happens also to be pro-British. The United States wants the best—the best of every- thing. She buys the best pictures. She trains, as she hopes, the best athletes. She invites the best immi- grants, and the best immigrants without doubt are Britons. Why should the Greek and the Armenian and the Italian, as they pile up their little piles, feel peeved " about neighbours of British origin ? They are just the boys whom the girls want to meet. Why should lawyers of Rumanian origin complain of Anglo- American jurisprudence ? It is admittedly the finest jurisprudence ever evolved by man. The Briton in America is popular because America is the only place in the world where the Briton has to behave as an equal and look pleasant about it.

A fact to be remembered is that the quota, applying to Europe, leaves the Canadian border and the Mexican frontier unguarded. Nor does it include Latin America. The actual movement into and out of the United States is thus far in excess of the figures usually taken to be a measure of immigration. To maintain a due element of British extraction is thus the more important.

For years I have been protesting that my fellow- countrymen do not know the inner mind of the United States when they foreshadow a lack of sympathy with Great Britain. This new quota is absolute proof of the real facts. There is not a nation in the world that would open its gates to 60,000 immigrants a year from another nation unless it had decided in its own mind that its policy would be friendship.

British immigrants are thus welcome. They are, at least, as welcome in the United States as they are in Canada. But there are one or two things that the intending immigrant should bear in mind.

The first is his glass of beer. The idea that " anybody can get it " is good enough for gossip in the smoking room of a liner. In actual life, as ordinary people have to live it, the idea is a delusion. The average man, living on his pay, does not " get it." He gets the sack if he is found with it. If, then, the wage-earner is not ready to make up his mind frankly to be an abstainer from alcohol, he had much better abandon the idea of migrating from Wigan, Warrington and Westminster. Next, it should be clearly understood that, in this country, it is effort, not ease, that is rewarded. A man who cannot keep his own job, is supposed to find a job somewhere else. It is, I am sure, a mistake in nine cases out of ten to land without enough money to last for several weeks, and no man should bring his family across until he has made his own position reasonably secure.

Americans, travelling in Europe, expatiate on the opportunities offered by their country. They are right. This is a country of great opportunities. But the notion that money flutters on the sidewalks as in a paper- chase is delusive. Since the War, there have been scores of Englishmen, and some women, too, who, trading on the good name of their country, have borrowed money from their American hosts and left these and other petty debts unpaid. Nor have these careless defaulters belonged always to the working classes. Quite the contrary.

What happens to Britons who settle in the United States is not, however, the final question. They, or their children, if they stay here, naturally become American citizens. The question is rather how Britain herself is affected by such a migration.

Well, she loses certain of her unemployed, which is one advantage. She gains, moreover, an unmis- takable contribution to the friendship of a great foreign power. On the other hand, she must understand that she cannot pour out her flesh and blood into any Demo- cracy oversea, whether a Dominion or the United States, without reproducing her own incomparable character under the new conditions. Through schools and colleges, the United States is to-day doing her utmost to absorb into the mind of her citizenship what is meant by the greatness of England. The doubled quota, allotted to Great Britain, is merely one detail of a co-ordinated policy, the aim of which is to restore the tradition, broken politically in the year 1776. P. W. WILSON.