THE TRADE-UNION CONGRESS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPEOTATOR.1 In,—Writing of Mr. Delves's address to the Trade-Union Congress at Norwich, in the Spectator of September 8th, you say :—"Still more interesting, however, were the passages in whieh Mr. Delves dealt with a question of practical politics,— that connected with pauper immigration," &c., and applaud him for being against "the proposed prevention of pauper immigration." I am a constant reader of the Spectator, and have noticed on several occasions lately that you oppose any efforts that are being made to prevent this country being the dung-heap of Europe, while at the same time advocating emigration as a solution of the unemployed problem.
I should like to ask wherein lies the benefit to this country of shipping off the native-born Englishman who, whatever his faults, has (or used to be considered to have) some claim on his country, in order to make room for a pauper alien of an admittedly lower civilisation, this alien being at the same time too often unemployable. To a plain man such a course appears to be analogous to a crew trying to pump a ship dry without first stoppina the leaks. To sweaters I can understand that it is highly aivantageons to have an inexhaustible reserve of miserable wretches com- peting one against the other, for what work there may be going, at any price ; but in a country where there is not work enough to go round, and where if one gets it another has to stand out, I fail to see the benefit to the workers of intensi- fying the present cut-throat competition. Can any one seriously maintain that it is desirable that whole parishes in London should be entirely given up to the scum of Con- tinental cities? Whom is this country for P Is it intended for us who were born here, or for the foreigner ? If my memory serves me right, the Spectator some time baclz, in inquil bag into and comparing the present invasion with the inroads of the Danes, gave it as the reason of their ousting the natives that they were superior in giving and taking hard knocks, and that in the present case the pauper alien is the English- man's superior in that he can sleep six in a bed, if he has one ; but until you can adduce some better reasons than I have seen so far, I shall redouble my exertions on behalf of the Association for Preventing the Immigration of Pauper Aliens, though totally unconnected with that body.—I am,
Previous page
