ties of associated charities in forty-three cities, came to the conclusion that "the recent immigrants, even in cities in times of relative industrial inactivity, did not seek charitable assistance in any considerable numbers" (p. 354).

A brief chapter has been devoted by the author to the refutation of Gen. Walker's theory that immigration has displaced millions of unborn Americans. To Prof. Fairchild's mind, however, the reiteration of Gen. Walker's hypothesis by other prominent writers (none of whom has contributed a single new fact in support of it) somehow vests it with added authority. Magister dixit. He is not disturbed by his own admission, in his book published a short time before, that "the proposition . . . is absolutely incapable of mathematical proof." 1

To prove that the world-wide "volitional limitation of the family" has no relation to immigration to the United States, figures were quoted, in the first edition of this book, from Mr. Newsholme's The Declining Birth Rate, showing the number of children born to an average family of the British aristocracy to have declined within half a century from 7 to 3.2 The decline of the birth-rate among the upper classes of England led Prof. Karl Pearson to the following conclusions:

The mentally better stock in the nation is not reproducing itself at the same rate as of old. . . . For the last forty years the intellectual classes of the nation, enervated by wealth or by love of pleasure, or following an erroneous standard of life, have ceased to give in due proportion the men wanted to carry on the ever-growing work of the Empire.

Still, if facts do not count with Prof. Fairchild against a preconceived idea backed up by authorities, the authority of Prof. Willcox, ranged on the opposite side of the question,

1 Henry Pratt Fairchild: Immigration, pp. 341–342.

? These statistics have since been superseded by a nation-wide investigation, the results of which are quoted in the present edition.

'Quoted in the first edition, p. 226, from The Declining Birth Rate, by Arthur Newsholme, pp. 42–43.

ought to have appealed to him. That he has not a word to say about Prof. Willcox's arguments, although he has noticed the wrong spelling of Prof. Willcox's name, is ground for suspicion that he did not read the chapter on Race Suicide, and based his peremptory judgment on the brief summary on p. 18.

Verily, there are none so blind as those who would not

see.

Note to page 499.

IMPORTATION OF MEXICAN CONTRACT-LABORERS.

Under the departmental regulations, Mexican contract laborers are admitted on the express condition that they will remain at work with the employer by whom they were imported. If a contract laborer deserts his employer and attempts to seek work elsewhere, he is to be deported from the United States. There is a possibility that a contract laborer who has deserted his employer might successfully conceal his identity and find other employment. To guard against such an emergency the employer is required to withhold a part of the wages of the contract laborer, pending the fulfillment of his contract, and to deposit the same with a postal savings bank in the name of the laborer. In case the latter deserts, he forfeits the amount deposited for his benefit. To be sure, the regulations require the employer to pay his contract laborers the prevailing rate of wages. But this is merely nudum jus, which could not be enforced in practice. Suppose the employer pays his imported laborer under the prevailing rate, what remedy has the latter to enforce his claim? He dare not leave his job and seek employment on better terms, for fear of deportation. For the same reason he dare not strike for higher wages. He must accept the wages stipulated in his contract (made in Mexico) although they may be below the prevailing rate paid for the same work in the same locality. "That wages paid and conditions provided" for the imported Mexican laborers were "perhaps in many cases not ideal," is admitted in a report of an investigating committee appointed by Secretary Wilson. It is learned from the same report that 10,691 imported contract laborers, ».«., 21 per cent of the total number, deserted.2

1 "The New Mexican Immigration," by J. B. Gwin: The Survey, August 3, 1918, p. 491.

2 Monthly Labor Review, November, 1920, p. 223.

STATISTICAL TABLES

TABLE I.—Annual Average IMMIGRATION DISTRIBUTED BY OCCUPA TIONS (IN THOUSANDS), 1861-1910.1

TABLE II.-FLUCTUATIONS OF EMPLOYMEnt of Male WAGE-EARNERS

* Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance, June, 1903, pp. 4408– 4411. Reports of the Immigration Commission. Abstract of the Statistical Review of Immigration to the United States, 1820-1910, Tables 11-12. Annual Reports of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1899, Table VII., p. 19; 1900, Table VII., p. 21; 1901, Table IX., p. 26; 1902, Table IX., p. 29; 1903, Table IX., p. 33; 1904, Table IX., p. 30; 1905, Table VIII., p. 29; 1906, Table VIII., p. 31; 1907, Table VIII., p. 31; 1908, Table VIII., p. 35; 1909, Table X., p. 46; 1910, Table X., p. 45. Compiled from U. S. XII. Census Report on Manufactures, Pt. I, Table 2, pp. 20 et seq.

2

3 Difference between the greatest number employed at any time during the year and the number employed in May (i.e., the least number).

Cheese, butter, and condensed milk, factory product...

14,187

Clothing, men's, custom work and repairing.

576 5,789 16,861

Lumber, planing mill products, including sash, doors, and

' Difference between the number employed in May (i.e., the greatest number) and the least number employed at any time during the year.