portation does not leave a "reasonable profit" to the owner of the mine, he shuts it down. The many abandoned silver mines of the United States bear witness to the truth of this proposition.

The increased investment of American capital in the industrial development of foreign countries with cheap labor must eventually react upon labor conditions in the United States. Certain of the most important American industries depend in part upon the export trade. Such is, e. g., the manufacture of agricultural implements. It has recently been reported that American manufacturers of agricultural machinery were planning to establish plants in Russia that would supply the Russian trade. Such a plan would not be a new departure in the world of industry. English, French, Belgian, and German manufacturers have found it more profitable to establish factories in Russia than to export their products to that country. A scarcity of labor in the United States would induce many American manufacturers to imitate that policy. At present the great smelting works of New Jersey import ore from Mexico and employ Slav immigrants to smelt and refine it into lead and copper, a great deal of which is then exported to Europe. Should the immigration of Slav laborers be barred the lead and copper producers could accommodate themselves to the situation by erecting plants in Mexico and exporting the refined lead and copper directly to London.

Such an emigration of American capital would materially affect the export trade of the United States and eventually throw out of employment a number of American wageearners dependent upon that trade.

It is evident that while restriction of immigration can limit the supply of labor, it is powerless to prevent a corresponding limitation of the demand for labor.

The Immigration Commission holds that "a slow expansion of industry," in the absence of "the immigration of laborers of low standards," will raise "the American standard of wages." Yet the Commission does not explain

how a mere Platonic desire to maintain a high standard of living could of itself raise the rates of wages, unless the relation of demand and supply in the labor market were favorable to the wage-earner. The recent crisis has furnished a practical illustration bearing upon this point. When the operations of the steel mills were reduced, a great many men were laid off. The companies, however, offered their skilled men positions as laborers.' Neither their high American standard of living, nor their high standard of wages, nor their efficiency enabled them to insist upon higher wages than those which had been paid to unskilled laborers before the crisis. "A slow expansion of industry" is synonymous with an inactive demand for labor, and it is an elementary maxim of Political Economy that an inactive demand for labor is unfavorable to increases in wages.

It was assumed in the preceding discussion that "a sufficient number" of immigrants had been excluded "to produce a marked effect upon the present supply of unskilled labor." We shall now examine whether the methods recommended by the Immigration Commission would have such an effect.

The majority of the Commission recommended "the reading and writing test as the most feasible single method of restricting undesirable immigration." The minority held that "restriction should be limited to unmarried male aliens or married aliens unaccompanied by their wives and families."2

The test favored by the minority was apparently intended to be selective, rather than restrictive. As most

"The few unskilled places that were open were filled by Americans who were normally skilled workmen, but who at the time of the depression were compelled to take any kind of work they could get."-Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, pp. 39, 40.

...

"Skilled American employees. were glad to turn to unskilled occupations at twelve to fifteen cents an hour."-Ibid., p. 597.

2 Ibid., vol. I, p. 40.

of the male immigrants, however, are single, or, if married, are unaccompanied by their families,' this recommendation, if enacted into law, would in effect be little short of complete prohibition of immigration, not of unskilled laborers alone, but of skilled mechanics, and professional men as well.

Approximately one half of all immigrants above sixteen but under forty-five years of age admitted in 1910 were single. Of the other half that were married, over one half,2

"Because of economic conditions, the difficulty of securing a foothold in a new country when handicapped by the presence of a family, and the additional expense involved in the transportation of more than one, many of the married immigrants leave their wives abroad when coming to the United States. Money is, in most cases, sent abroad for the support of the wife in the old country. When sufficiently well established, the husband, if he intends to make the United States his permanent place of residence, sends for the wife, or, going abroad upon a visit, brings her back with him."-Ibid., vol. 6, p. 158.

Jewish immigration is recognized as an exception. The percentage of families among the Jewish immigrants is higher than among immigrants of any other race. This fact, however, is the best proof of the abnormal character of Jewish immigration. The bulk of the Russian-Jewish immigrants have no idea of returning to the country of their birth, where their opportunities to earn a living are restricted by various civil disabilities in the choice of residence and occupation. Thousands of Russian immigrants were banished from their homes by edicts transferring certain cities from the "pale of settlement" to other provinces from which Jews are excluded, and by numerous other executive orders of a similar character, to say nothing of those who fled from massacres. Under such conditions the immigrant naturally takes his family along with him.

Of the 640,346 male immigrants between 14 and 44 years of age admitted in 1910, 353,936 were single (Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration for 1910, p. 24). This number, of course, included many boys 14 years of age and over who came with their parents. The statistics of immigration do not give their number separately, but it may be estimated from the census statistics of the age distribution of the foreign-born on the assumption that all boys under 17 years came with their parents and all boys 17 years of age and over came alone. The proportion of boys under 14 years among the foreign-born in 1900 was 2.144 per cent and the proportion of boys from 14 to 16 years 1.257 per cent. (Population, XII. Census, vol. ii., Table XVIII., p. xliii.) The number of immigrant boys under

at a conservative estimate, must have left their wives abroad.' The recommendation of the minority would accordingly debar considerably more than three fourths of the male immigrants.

The illiteracy test recommended by the majority of the Immigration Commission does not go so far. The proportion of illiterates among the male immigrants fourteen years of age and over admitted in 1910 was twenty-six per cent. Assuming that they were all unskilled laborers, we may estimate their proportion at not over thirty-eight per cent of the total number of unskilled laborers admitted. 3 At this rate the average annual immigration of unskilled laborers for the decade 1901-1910 would still have remained eighty per cent above the average for 1891-1900.4 Yet the arguments for restriction of immigration were the same in the 90's as to-day. Prof. Fairchild, referring to the period from December, 1907, to August, 1908, when emigration exceeded immigration by 124,124, finds that "this figure is almost infinitesimal compared to the total mass of the American working people, or to the amount of unemployment at a normal time." The net result of the emigration movement of those nine months was tantamount to a prohibition of immigration, yet Prof Fairchild finds that it

14 admitted in 1910 was 61,969. The number between 14 and 16 years (both inclusive) may accordingly be estimated as 37,000. This leaves approximately 317,000 single men from 17 to 44 years of age out of an estimated total of 603,000.

"The proportion of Southern and Eastern European coal miners who had been less than five years in the United States and reported their wives abroad, varied from forty-nine per cent to eighty-one per cent" (Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, Table 106, p. 162). Many of the others, however, doubtless had come unaccompanied by their wives and sent for them subsequently, after having earned in the United States the cost of their passage.

2

Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1910, Table VII B.

3 For details of this calculation see Note at the end of this Chapter. 4 For the average annual immigration of common laborers and persons engaged in agricultural pursuits see Appendix, Table I.

This admission,

had "a very trifling palliative effect." coming as it does from a learned advocate of restriction, is full of meaning. It permits of but one logical conclusion, viz., that even complete prohibition of immigration would have but an "infinitesimal" effect upon unemployment and other problems of vital interest to "the total mass of the American working people." Mere restrictive legislation could a fortiori produce no remedial effect. The futility of one act would only goad the believers in restriction to renewed efforts for more restriction. It is to be hoped that the sound reason of the American people will prevail, and that, after intelligent discussion, they will reject the panacea of restriction as they have the greenback and free-silver cure-alls.

NOTE.

Number of unskilled laborers among male immigrants and percentage of illiteracy among them. The statistics of immigration contain no classification of immigrants both by occupation and sex, but the number of unskilled male laborers can be estimated with a fair degree of accuracy. The number of immigrants admitted in 1910 who were not listed as "professional" and "skilled" comprised the following occupations:

The number of farm laborers and laborers, probably, included some The number of the latter may be estimated from an examination of the occupations of women.

women.

I

Henry Pratt Fairchild: "Immigration and Crises," The American Economic Review, December, 1911, p. 758.

2

Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1910, Tables VI., VII., and VII B.