NEW IMMIGRATION TESTS.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18404, 10 June 1925, Page 12

NEW IMMIGRATION TESTS.

A PSYCHOLOGIST'S WARNING. "Before this-stream (of immigrants) inundates us beyond possibility of absorption, it is well to pause and consider the desirability or undesirability, of an indiscriminate influx such as has hitherto occurred." In this way Dr. A.. H. Martin (lecturer in psychology at Sydney University) opened an impressive address before the Australasian Psychological and Philosophical Association at the University recently, reports the Sydney "Daily Telegraph." It 'was entitled, "The Case for Psychological Selection of Immigrants." Mental qualities of citizenship were fully as desirable as the physical ones', he said. To-day no selective methods were adopted to secure the rejection of unfit types, but measures were afoot to segregate these within our present community. The speaker pointed out that migration to-day was ridiculously cheap and easy. The "newer" countries, he said, offered far more inducements for the mediocre and subnormal than the older countries of Europe. The United States had exploded the "melting pot" theory, and the report of the special immigration committee revealed that of America's foreign-born population,' totalling 13,920,692 persons, almost half were classified as "inferior" or worse. Statistics covering the mental hospitals in New York State showed, that 46 % per cent, of patients were foreignborn, while 22 per cent, were nativeborn, of foreign parentage. In New South Wales the ngures for the insane British population were only 3.9 per 1000; for* the foreign-born population the figures were 29 per 1000. "Such facts," commented Dr. Marton, "touch us vitally at home." He advocated (1) A quota system whereby tho_ influx of foreign immigrants are limited to numbers which may be readily assimilated and "Australianiscd." (2) The administration of simple intelligence tests to all immigrants both British and foreign, in order to exclude types that do not reach an adequate mental standard. (3) Thb examination of British immigrants by meanß of some test of emotional stability; and the "close examination of all foreign types by means of skilled psychiatrists. (4) The • supplementing of the present staff carrying out a medical inspection on physiological lines of other members skilled in psychological ana tysis. •