ANTI-GERMAN RIOTS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2464, 18 May 1915, Page 3

ANTI-GERMAN RIOTS

POSITION IN THE EAST END. [By "Londoner."] The riots which are now taking place in London—particularly the East End —are but the concrete expression of pent up and suppressed racial feeling that has long been in evidence east of Aldgate Pump by reason of the enormous influx of aliens which has been preceding for the past quarter of a century. During that period the East End has undergone a complete transformation. Districts that were once wholly occupied by Britishers have now passed into alien hands. Tils overwhelming majority of these aliens are Russian and Polish Jews l who, it must bo adiuitter, have invariably proved themselves to be good and law-abiding citizens. At the same time they have been able to undersell'the native, to purchase wholesale tlio_ tenements of the district, and in localities like AYhitechapel and St.' Georges-in-the-East the English tongue has been almost wholly supplanted*by Yiddish. Early in the present century a somewhat serious state of affairs arose in the East End, and there was every prospect that the latent ill-feeling against the foreigners would culminate in grave disorders. _ Consequent upon representations and in view .of t'he serious ix>sition, the Government appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the question of alien immigration. Th« late Lord James of Hereford—one of the best friends the workers ever had —was appointed chairman, and the lata Major Sir William Evans Gordon, the Conservative member of Parliament for Stepney, travelled throughout SouthEastern Europe to investigate the explosive forces which were driving tin population of those countries to Great Britain. It was not, however, merely the presenco of the alien Jewish population in thoir midst that provoked the rancour of the workers. Germans who openly professed their hostility to the country arrived in large numbers, formed themselves into_ Tuetonic colonies, and ousted the native from home and occupation.' In Poplar, and further oast, where the docks lie, frequent collisions occurred between the rival nationalities. Tlie East End is a congerie of huge towns.- It is called the Tower Hamlets, and among the hamlets are the Boroughs of Stepney with * population of 300,000, Pcplar 170,000 and Bethnal Green 130,000. The artisans, who form the; overwhelming malority of the inhabitants, not only very keenly felt the influx of these aliens, but they saw their means of livelihood perishing. While Germany and other foreign countries were dumping their thousands of tons of cheap and shoddy goods into England,- which has no protective tariff, the .workers saw Germany raising her tariff walls and excluding British-made goods, to the detriment of the manufacturer and- tha impoverishment of tho artisan. That these facts iave sunk very deeply into the hearts of the people is 'altogether beyond dispute, yet when the Conservative Administration passed the Aliens Bill, which to a certain extent stemmed the tide of the foreign invasion, it was denounced by Labour representatives as a gross infringement of the liberty of tho subject. The war and the sinking of the Lusitania have apparently brought matters to a head. Liberal Governments in the past have manifested a ludicrous supineness in dealing with questions of alien immigration and the tariff. The undosirable foreigner has fto long been allowed to make England his happy hunting ground, and this fact, coupled with an extraordinary inability on the part of Governments to emancipate themselves from tho hidebound trammels of the Manchester School is .largely _ responsible • for deplorable racial animosity and wide-. 6pread unemployment—a state of things which led the late Sir Henry CampbellBanncrman Cthe then Libera] Premier) to declare that there were thirteen millions of people in Great Britain on the verge of starvation. The student of social problems, .vhile deploring excesses, rccognises in the present facial outbreaks, a determination on the part of tho British working man to tompcl Governments to safeguard antj protect the sovereign rights of thoir own subjects, ami not to mako them a secondary consideration in tho social and economic lifo of the country.