It is now many years since Mr. C. Pearson, the
historian, after a long tour in the United States, predicted in our columns that the Americans would sooner or later closely restrict immigra- tion. A direct Bill for this purpose has now been introduced into the Senate, and has been referred to the Foreign Affairs Coin. mittee. Senator Morrill, its author, declares that five million immigrants have entered the Union in ten years, that in New York 80 per cent. of the people, in Chicago 91 per cent., and in Boston 70 per cent., are foreign-born, and that 19,430,000 of the whole people, nearly one in three, were born outside the Union. He therefore proposes that no immigrant should be allowed to leave Europe for America without a certificate of character and solvency from an American Consul. Some of Mr. Morrill's figures are obvious exaggerations, and his Bill has no chance of passing; but its introduction shows that Ameri- cans are waking up to the dangers produced by the foreign immigration. Immigration will not be forbidden, but, in the end, the suffrage and public office will be restricted, like the Presidential chair, to men born on the territory of the Union. That was the first article in the old "Knownothing " creed.
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