Perils of Migration
Somerville, Henry
294 THE COMMONWEAL January 19, 1927 great study, and of dread; sometime of the biting of a wood-hound [mad dog] or some other venomous beast; sometime of melancholy meats, and sometime of drink of...
...In the first two or three years after the end of the war, European ports were crowded with emigrants waiting for ships to take them overseas: now the ships are there, but the emigrants, espe- dally those of eastern and southeastern Europe, are shut out of the United States, which received the great bulk of emigrants before the war...
...I turned to my newspaper...
...It was called by the International Federation of Trade Unions and it in- cluded the most famous Socialists and Marxians in Europe...
...Restrictions scarcely affect the English worker for he has an open door to the British dominions...
...Nothing in its appearance recalls the romance of its past...
...La Caserne Durutte va Disparaitre (At Last...
...The international organiza-tion of the proletariat was itself the spectre to govern- ments and governing classes...
...But there were Indians to speak for Asiatics, and Canada has very much the same view- point as the United States, while Australia was there to assert the rights of exclusiveness in the most extreme form...
...A commission of the congress held a private session...
...At this session a resolution virtually the same as that quoted was carried by a vote of twenty-five to fourteen...
...The approach by rail is through a forest of foun- dries and smoking stacks...
...The symptoms--diverse, but dassed as excitement and depression, mania and melan- choly...
...There were some conspicuous absentees from the congress...
...Durutte Barracks to Be Demolished) and beneath it, this: "Grace aux efforts tenace et aux d~marches nombreuses de la munidpalit6, l'administration de la guerre vient de l$cher sa proie...
...It is chiefly the tendency toward restriction which is responsible for the decline in the figures...
...The Salle ~t manger of the Grand Hotel de la Gare, was full of electric lights, commercial travelers, and tobacco smoke...
...D~j;~ hier, nous avons annonc~ que les derniers services militaires avaient quitt~ la easerne...
...294 THE COMMONWEAL January 19, 1927 great study, and of dread...
...Such wars, whatever their ostensible or immediate causes, would be migration wars...
...The British section sided with the domin- ions though they were responsible for the introduc-tion of the resolution...
...e He specifically mentioned Japan and Italy as men-aces to world peace on this account...
...and the future may see devastating wars break out on this account...
...We have only established this r6gime in our insane asylums in the past generation...
...We would have been glad to have had more of the results of his personal observation and fewer of the wild state- ments he makes as the result of superficial knowledge...
...Brown, one of the secretaries of the International Federation of Trade Unions, sounded the keynote in the opening speech: The great phenomenon of post-war times has been the increase in the regulation of migration and its restric- tion...
...As my arrival was in the early evening, I sought a guide-book for consumption with my dinner, but finding that none exists-- Douai is off the tourist-trail---I contented myself with a news- paper...
...In our countries there are too many of us...
...The medicine of them is, that they be bound, that they hurt not them- selves and other men...
...The causes are all there except heredity, and that is a con- dition and not a cause...
...A spectre is haunting Europe," though not the spectre that Marx meant, and it is haunting not Europe only...
...A world labor congress was held in London some time ago...
...on the other, what was once the walled town...
...You must not think of emigration as the remedy for your poverty and unemployment and overcrowding...
...And as the causes be diverse, the tokens and signs he diverse...
...Moreover, Mr...
...A spectre is haunting Europe" were the first words, and "Workers of the world, uniter" were the last...
...If selfishness keeps out justice and charity from the consideration of the allocation of the world's resources to the world's people, the issue may be universal disaster...
...But after it was carried it was withdrawn and it was agreed that an announcement of what had happened should be made to the full congress with the explanation that the resolution was shelved in order to preserve una-nimity but that it was to be brought up again at a future congress...
...The attitude of Canada and Australia pre-vented it...
...Mr...
...For some cry and leap and hurt and wound themselves and other men, and darken and hide themselves in privy and secret places...
...My eye was caught by the caption: Enfin...
...There is not enough land for all, not enough work...
...France and Belgium which, since the war, have been immigrant-receiving countries, were easily brought to favor restriction...
...The Italians are most vitally affected by immigration barriers, but owing to Fascism they are not in the International Federation of Trade Unions...
...His words were significant: January i9, i927 THE COMMONWEAL 295 States with rapidly multiplying populations for which there is no corresponding increase in potentialities of ab- sorption are a threat to the peace of the world...
...Some of us must emigrate or all must sink in misery," was the burden of speech after speech...
...It was frankly stated that if the congress had been held without the presence of "extra,Euro-pean" delegates (Canadian and Australian) the resolu- tion would probably have been carried unanimously...
...Since 1848 we have had the great war, not to men- tion other examples of national differences and antag- onisms between peoples...
...National differences, and antagon-isms between peoples, are daily more and more vanish- ing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world-market, to uni-formity in the mode of production and in the condi- tions of life corresponding thereto...
...I1 est ~ penser maintenant, que les d~molisseurs ne tarderont pas ~ en prendre possession et que bientSt la d&olante silhouette aura disparu...
...Perhaps he would not have been so invidious if Japanese and Italian representatives had been present...
...Your remedy is to resolve at any cost to raise your standards of life by the restriction and improvement of your popula-tion," said the spokesman for Australia, a country nearly the size of the United States with only the popu- lation of New York City...
...The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster...
...We may safely predict that the wreckers will soon be at work and that before long this disheartening silhouette will be removed...
...Darrow should look to his sources...
...But they must not base their prosperity on our misery...
...On the one hand stretches a miniature city of modern red-tiled laborers' dwellings...
...Europe is as anxious to emigrate as ever...
...As an international official, however, he is bound to express in some degree the feelings of the countries which regard emigration as a necessity--Germany, Poland, Austria, Jugo-Slavia, in fact, all middle and southern Europe...
...History has de-veloped very differently from the anticipations of both those who desired and those who feared revolution...
...A southern Slav delegate, however, took advantage to say that war might easily come from the Balkan countries where there were hundreds of thousands of workers who could not get a living and who found themselves shut out from the countries where there were opportu- nities for livelihood...
...PERILS OF MIGRATION By HENRY SOMERVILLE T HERE will be some readers who remember the opening and the dosing words of the Communist manifesto of I848, written by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels...
...The reading of them is a kind of legitimate eavesdropping--an unobserved scrutiny of the workings of our neighbor's household, without the disquieting apprehension of being humiliated by discovery...
...They trembled at the thought of a workers' revolution...
...Catholics, above all, should take a wide and sympathetic view...
...Australia expressed most unyieldingly, one might say, brutally, the attitude of restriction...
...Note the causes~passion, business, too deep thinking, over-grief, over-study, dread, infection, melancholy meats (autointoxication) or alcoholic excess...
...Further: "The workingmen have no country...
...sometime of melancholy meats, and sometime of drink of strong wine...
...DOUAI IN DECAY By LAWRENCE O. WOLF M Y ticket read, "Douai...
...Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie and proletariat," said the manifesto...
...Brown is the English secretary of an inter-national federation...
...The treatmentwkeep them from hurting them- selves or others, give them recreation and diversion of mind, gladden them with music, give them manual occupation...
...but here is this dear old Franciscan recommending it in a book that was written for the clergy nearly seven hundred years ago...
...Mr...
...The vital question before the congress was em-bodied in the following resolution submitted by the Preparatory Commission: This congress declares that in principle migration should be free, that is to say, purely political reasons should not interfere with freedom of migration: economic conditions alone should weigh in the balance when decisions are be- ing made, and only in very exceptional circumstances should other factors be allowed to influence these decisions...
...That paragraph is so condensed that it would need a long commentary to make it properly appreciated...
...Brown appears to incline to the belief that congested and impoverished coun-tries may raise their standards of living by birth con-trol...
...Japanese delegates were expected but were detained by another conference at Geneva...
...The workers of a good many countries of the world were uniting and they showed to the world a spectre...
...It is the problem of old countries where popula- tion presses upon the means of subsistence, and where there is the demand for the open door to more spacious lands of ampler resources...
...Its station is new...
...And they must be gladded with instruments of music and some deal be occupied...
...And namely such shall be refreshed, and comforted, and withdrawn from cause and matter of dread and busy thoughts...
...The congress in London did something to educate Europeans as to the problems of social assimilation as well as economic absorption which have to be faced by countries which receive im- migrants...
...They were uniting, however, not against cap- italists, but against other workers ; and the spectre was, not class revolution, but war of the workers of con-gested, low-wage countries against the rich new world which bars their entrance to a share in its prosperity...
...It may be said at once that this resolution was not passed...
...In accordance with our announcement of yesterday, the last troops have evacuated the barracks...
...Migration was the specific subiect the congress was called to consider...
...There were the inevitable appeals to the solidarity of the working-class of the world...
...The populations of the new countries are themselves of immigrant stock...
...This richly historic town lies dose to the Belgian border, and is now one of France's industrial centres...
...The evils from which their fathers escaped have not dis-appeared in the old world...
...The United States was not represented...
...But surely there is something for the new countries to learn and understand in the awful diffi-culties which oppress those lands where population out- runs the natural resources...
...Thanks to the efficient policy and untiring efforts of the local authorities, the War Department has relinquished its prey...
...There is something in the journals of small towns which fascinates...
...The natural desire of the workers of the more favored countries to defend their standards of life was recog-nized...
Vol. 5 • January 1927 • No. 11
