mortality and morbidity are unsatisfactory. Mr. Smith endeavours to be scrupulously fair in his consideration of the amount of insanity due to immigration, and of the number of blind and deaf and dumb, of the crippled and diseased, and of the prisoners and paupers, of foreign origin; but he regards the foreign immigration as the 'prevailing cause of illiteracy.' He points out that on the ground of traditional usage, and also of principle, the interference of the State in the matter is justifiable. It has regulated by Passenger Acts the treatment of the emigrant at sea and on landing; it has exercised the right to expel aliens and to superwise the residence of strangers. In mediaeval times it refused to permit freedom of migration, until the expansion of trade and industry broke down these restrictions in practice, and the spread of French principles of freedom and equality removed their theoretical foundation. But the legal power to limit immigration is undeniable, and the moral duty to prevent a higher civilisation from being dragged down to the level of a lower is, he maintains, urgent. He would no indeed prohibit immigration, but he would enforce the existing laws against the importation of contract labour, and the restrictions on pauper immigration; and he advocates a plan of consular certificates, which the intending emigrant from other countries should obtain from the nearest American consul, testifying to freedom from faults which might fairly be held to disqualify for citizenship in the United States. He points out very forcibly that the protection of goods from foreign competition logically involves the protection of labour; and, while noticing the illegal treatment which characterised the antiChinese agitation in America, he shows that our own colonies have exhibited a similar reluctance to welcome the Chinese immigrant. In fact, the question of restricting immigration is not solely an American question. The immigration of Italians into ]?rance, of Jews into London, and of Chinese into Australia, raises similar issues to those which Mr. Smith discusses in this book, and renders his thorough and philosophic treatment, even where we may not entirely agree with it, of instructive interest to others beside his own countrymen. It is also of considerable interest, because he represents a growing feeling in the States, which may render the problem of relieving the pressure of population in certain classes amongst ourselves increasingly difficult, by limiting the possibilities of emigration, state-aided or otherwise, to America. Amongst much which may deserve, and has certainly received, criticism in the scheme lately put forward by General Booth, it is worthy of notice that he has at least been shrewd and practical enough to recognise that the colonies will be disinclined to receive pauper emigrants until they have been prepared for their work, and have been rid, by being passed through the sieve of a double test, of their most degraded characteristics.
L.L. Price
