are really opposed to ourselves, we learn the most. By opposing our ideas, they rouse us to activity.)

Advantage of Contact With Educated Orientals

We ought, then, not to fail to get the benefit from contact with foreigners, especially those whose racial customs differ widely from ours. In order, however, to secure this advantage, it is not necessary that they immigrate in large numbers, and especially that they come as people of the unskilled laboring classes. Rather should we encourage our own people to travel in foreign countries; to get the ideas that come from the study of different civilizations; and we should encourage the coming to our shores of people of the better trained and more intelligent classes-travelers, scientists, students, merchants, and others from whom we can gather new plans of work. While it may, for economic as well as for social reasons, be wise to exclude the common laborer, it can not but be unwise to exclude trained men and womén who come to us usually merely for a temporary sojourn, and from whom we may learn much that will tend to benefit our own civilization. Moreover, by exchanging ideas and giving to them the benefits of our civilization, which differs from theirs, we may give to them an equal advantage, and thus the civilization of the world will be promoted.___ Whatever views we may hold with reference to the ordinary immigration question, so far as the Orient is concerned, there can be no doubt that we ought to uphold a policy of friendly intercourse between the oriental nations and our own, in order that each may get the benefit of the civilization of the other.

Population of the Pacific Coast

EUROPEANS AND MEXICANS

In the eleven States and Territories of the western division of the United States, in 1900, more than 20 per cent. of the population were foreign-born. About 2 per cent. of the population, and about 10 per cent. of the foreign-born, had emigrated from Asia. About 12.7 per cent. of the total population, more than 60 per cent. of the foreign-born, had emigrated from the North European countries. The Germans rank first, the English next, the Irish next. Moreover, almost 90,000 immigrants from Canada, or 2.2 per cent. of the population, might be included with the North Europeans as being largely of the same stock. Beside these, considerably more than 100,000 had emigrated from southern and eastern Europe, forming some 2.6 per cent. of the population of the western coast. Of these South and East European immigrants, the Italians are the most numerous, followed by the Austrians, Finns and Portuguese.

Another group entirely different, and so distinct in their qualities that they might almost in many respects be classed with the orientals, on account of their ways of living, are the Mexicans, with nearly 30,000, less than I per cent. of the entire population.

CHANGES SINCE 1900

During the last decade there have been some material changes in the nature of the population. Between 1900 and 1907 came a rapid increase in the number of the Japanese, with a few Koreans. Some of these came from Japan and others from Hawaii,

until the number of that race in the western part of the United States is probably somewhat more than 90,000, more than half of whom are in California and one-sixth of them, perhaps, in the State of Washington. The number of Chinese on the Pacific Coast is rapidly diminishing, the decline being due in part to the exclusion law, and in part to a tendency among the Chinese to move to Eastern cities. During the past ten years a rapid incoming of Mexicans has continued until their numbers in the Western States have increased many times over. The number of English, Scandinavian, and other North Europeans, continued to increase in part by direct immigration from these countries of Europe, and in part by a westward movement of the workers from the East, as the increasing number of South and East Europeans in the East made the working conditions harder; partly, also, this was a westward movement of families to locate in better conditions on farms. There has been, also, an influx of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, the smaller part of them coming direct from their native land, except perhaps in the case of the North Italians, the Portuguese and one or two other races of less importance numerically, the larger number coming from the Eastern States to engage in common, unskilled, and partly-skilled labor in the mines, smelters and other industries where unskilled labor is required in large numbers.

Doubtless, beyond the figures recorded by the Immigration Bureau, a considerable number of Chinese and Japanese have been smuggled in, but as compared with the entire number, this number is probably so small that we need take no special account of it, especially as during late years the effectiveness of the Im

migration Bureau in thwarting smugglers has doubtless

increased.

DISPLACEMENT OF AMERICANS BY EUROPEAN

WORKMEN

Tho much less frequently than in the East, there have been found also in the West, a few instances of race displacement by Europeans working at a lower wage than the Americans. Generally speaking, the immigrants, introduced for railroad section work, have received the same wages as those previously paid. In certain cases they have secured even more than the laborers previously employed, the latter being insufficient in number to meet the increasing demand.

On several occasions East European races have been introduced as strike-breakers; for example, in the coal mines of Colorado, New Mexico, and Washington, and in the metalliferous mines of Colorado. In these instances the retention of the old scale of wages was only possible because of the failure of the strikes. In this way the immigrants, as in the coal regions of Pennsylvania, discouraged the efforts of the trade-unions.

such instances.

There have been, however, few

The availability of a comparatively large supply of the South and East European races, including the Greeks, has at times assisted to a considerable extent in the expansion of industry. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that it has seriously retarded the advance of wages in those occupations where such labor could be used to advantage. A specific example is found in the case of section hands on the railroads, where the wages have varied little during the last fifteen years, altho the wages in other lines of indus

try have advanced materially. Moreover, the wages of the South and East Europeans and Mexicans have in many cases increased only slightly, if at all, while the wages of Japanese, even when in the same line of work, have been materially advanced. Again, in certain fields of work where, in certain localities, the Europeans from the North and East of Europe are employed, and in other places those from southeastern Europe and from Mexico, it has been found that among the latter wages have advanced only slightly, whereas among the earlier classes they have been materially higher. For example, in the State of Washington, where natives and North Europeans constitute the majority of those employed, wages for those employed as laborers on street railways have varied from $2.25 to $2.50 per day. In another community not far away, where the Greeks and Italians were largely employed, similar labor received wages varying from $1.75 to $2.25 per day. Other instances in the State of California have been found where among the gangs made up mostly of southern and eastern Europeans, the prevailing wages were less by some 25 to 75 cents per day than those where the North Europeans were chiefly employed.

UNSKILLED IMMIGRANTS

The immigrants from South and East Europe have been mainly unskilled laborers, and, on the whole, have not shown the same readiness to join trade unions and to insist upon American working conditions as have those of the older immigration from the North and West of Europe. Again, there is clearly a tendency on the part of some employers to segregate their unskilled workmen into colonies under the leader