Simultaneously with the appearance of some notes of mine in
the Spectator suggesting that American opinion might favour an alteration in the present immigration laws so as to admit a larger annual quota of British to the United States, the editor of the American Review of Reviews dealt with the same subject. In the May issue of Dr. Albert Shaw's interesting survey there appears the following :— " The English population now increases by natural growth more rapidly than do the opportunities for employment at home. Factory workers and artisans from the British population centres are not well adapted to pioneer farming in Canada or Australia. They are, however, well fitted for employment in our American centres of textile, chemical, and metal-working industries. We do not need European farmers in the United States and Canada at the present time, because we are already suffering from agricultural over-production, with corresponding low prices. Both Canada and the United States need workers on railroads and in shops and factories and in the building trades, rather than on farms. We have converted into American citizens many millions of people who when arriving here from Europe have been unable to speak a word of English. But there arc reasons of various sorts why we should now seek a large immigration from Great Britain."
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