The growing uneasiness which is felt by the French working
men owing to the competition of foreign immigrants, has at last induced the Government to move ; and this week it is announced that M. Floquet has advised President Carnot to sign a Decree imposing a very stringent form of registration
not only upon all fresh immigrants, but upon the 1,126,531 foreigners already resident in France. In future, every foreigner in France will have to make a declaration " set- ting forth,--(1), his name, and the names of his father and mother; (2), his nationality; (3), the place and date of his birth ; (4), the place of his last domicile ; (5), his profession, or means of subsistence ; and (6), the names and nationality of his wife, and of his children under age, when be is accompanied by them." He will also have to produce documentary evidence to support the declaration. The Decree is declared in some .quarters to be ultra mires, such interference with foreigners being only legal when directly authorised by a legislative Act. We have dealt elsewhere with the policy of the Decree, and can merely notice here how strong is the notion that a country only grows rich by living on itself. There is a class of French Protectionists who, we feel sure, will never be happy till they have reduced France to the condition of the island whose inhabitants are said to " gain a scanty and precarious livelihood by taking in each other's washing."
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