THE MELTING POT.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 July 1925, Page 4

THE MELTING POT.

PROBLEM. OF THE STATES. (Rv David Loth, of the “New York World.”) Australia, it has been said, can easily support ten times its present population without irignling the desert or attempting intensive cultivation ol the land. With such irrigation and intensive agriculture, her possibilities appear to lie infinite, so far as population is concerned. Under the White Australia policy that population will have to lie recruited from Europe, where there are whites—and whiLes. If the best results are to be obtained, these different nationalities cannot lie mixed. It is an idle argument to set up anyone of these peoples as inherently better than the others. At one time or another nearly every one has been predominant in the world—the Greek, the Italian, the TTeiiehnian. the Anglobi.xon. and in their own sph-re, the Slav and Scandinavian. Potentially they are of equal capacity, actudly they claim equal rights, but as a practical matter they are separated bv gulfs often as wide as those dm ling them all from the brown or yellowraces. What will happen if they ne mixed indiscriminately can be scon m

the United States, “ the melting pot.” Any metallurgist will tell you that il you throw scraps of iron and steel and tin and zinc and copper and lead and a dozen others carelessly into Hie inciting pot, tho alloy will probably Cf nibble Hie worst features of each. In America it has not. been as bad as that, hut the result, laying aside the rose-tinted glasses ol patriotism, is lar Irom combining the best ' Mtur-s of each. ■ Lor over a century the t uitetl Statet boasted that they were a refuge and a haven for the oppressed ol ail nations. Then this was ■itneiided to the oppressed of all white nations. And now i‘ has been found necessary to malm lurther amendments. In the days when the boast was first made. America needed people as AuMralia. needs them now, and any man of average industry and ability could take his living and a bit more out ol the land. Tor a hundred years Hie vast majority ol those who came to America hailed Iron’, the British Isles, Germany, France, and the Scandinavian countries. Ihe races of .Southern and Eastern Europe begun to flock in a holt t the same time ns the Chinese and Japanese. The yellow mer were excluded quite early, hut lor tie cades every white man was welcomed In the 'Eighties and ’Ninlies the annual number of immigrants was lw< and three and four hundred thousand Rut in these years the southern am eastern Europeans began coming, util in a thin stream. Rut soon iho triekli

boon wo i\ flood ; in 1002 iip.hiignition jumped from four hundred to six hundred thousand, in 1003 to eight hundred thousand, and in 1 DOT more than a million aliens were admitted. I' rum then until lido the average rate ol immigration was one mililoii a year. The majority were coming troni Russia. Roland. Italy, and the Balkans. Immigration Irom Western Europe waded i oing. A TREMENDOUS MIXTURE. To-day in the population ol Iff),000. (!()(). over Jll.O'JO.firU) are of foreign stock—nearly LI.OOO.OtUI foreign horn and the rest are their children. At they intermarry they produce a mixlure of race which it would lie dillieu!! to equal anywhere, and it is a inixtiir. on a tremendous scale. So lar. how cm r, the disadvantages of this mixtur;

of race have not been very apparent, as the tax]; of Americanising these huge masses of new immigrants has I ecu occupying the country's attention. It has proved an impossible task. The English, Irish, German, and .Scandinavian immigrant ol earhi’r days was absorbed without a trace other than his accent into the mass of the people within a few years, lie went mil into the (oiintrv. especially the Germans and Scandinavians, and settled on the laud. Within a few years he had hacked a farm out ol the plains, learned English, and became a citizen. To-day entire Stales in the north-west arc peopled almost wholly by big blond men. with the broad leisurely drawl uhiili is the Scandinavian accent. The earlier .Mediterranean and Slavic settlers followed their example, hut they were few in number. About the time of the vast inllux of .Southern and Eastern Europeans the United States were finding themselves one of the world’s greatest industrial powers. Native labour was expensive hut poorly organised, and the newcomers, entering by the hundreds of thousands, were cheap, docile, and ignorant. Employers ol unskilled labour clamoured for them, and encouraged them to migrate. Where a native worker wanted a pound a day. the immigrant could he obtained for six or

.eight shillings, and considered it a fortune. That was the explanation for the sudden and rapid growth of immigration; it was then that the tradition of an America whose streets were paved with gold began to arise in the squalid slums and ghettos of overcrowded European cities. The newcomers were of a different temper as well as of a different breed Irom their predecessors. The land had no attractions for them; they were pursuing the pot ol gold at the end of the industrial rainbow. They settled in the cities, especially the eastern industrial cities, and sent home lor their families and friends. They were not absorbed into the mass of the people. Instead they coagulated into lumps of foreign matter, living as they did at home, clinging to their own language and traditions. They were able to do it by sheer mi in hors; they founded I Iteir own cities within the bigger Cities, so that'now there have grown up little ltalys, little Russian, little Rolands, and little Grecces. Outside | of the industrial centres these natiomj alities are negligible. New A'ork is the most horrible example. One-third of its 0,000.0(10 people are foreign born. It is a stock jest that you may hear any language hut English spoken in the streets, for the city harbours .’iOO.OOO Russians. ffin.OAf) Italians. Un.OtlO Roles, nearly a> main Austrian'. lljO.OIIt) from lh - I’a.lkarix. In addition then- are 200.01 fi Irishmen. 2i.nt.iMui Germans. SO, 000 Scandinavians. cud 100,000 from the United Kingdom. In addition to the 2.0000,1!:it I horn aliens, the city has 2,300,000 one or both of whose parent' were horn abroad. NO ENGLISH.

j New A'ork teems with men and ) women who know no English, mulerj stand nothing and care less about American institutions, and educate j their children in the way of the old I world. There are whole sections where any communication with the people must he carried on through the interpretation of their children, who are taught a kind of English in the schools. Chicago is about as had. The writer has seen ea*es called in court involving disputes Let tv ecu foreign hern oitiI zens who spoke no English, although I they bad lived in the city tor twenty | or thirty years. It is a hopeless task | to make such people into good and i useful oit-ions. It is almost as difficult | to make their children into Americans; in fact most of America’s crime, which seems to lie one of her chict claims to notoriety abroad, is perpetrated by foreigners and their children. The man from Southern and Eastern Europe has an entirely alien outlook on life, much more so than the man from the north

and west. He is not accustomed Id the kind of freedom ho linds in the United States, and lie would find an even stranger brand in Australia. Not knowin’g lunv to use it, lie abuses it, and teaches his children to do the same. For years Americans took it philosophically, believing that the newer generation would he more suitable type. It is, but meanwhile the first and second generations were playing football with the national institutions. They could be taught by thousands. for America spends C 300.000,000 a year on public schools, hut by the million it is impossible, especially as there is a high percentage oi illiteracy among the foreign born. The total illiteracy of Americans is 0 per cent., but for native whites, it is only 'it per cent., while for foreign horn whites it. is a trifle over f.'l per cent. it is only since the war that America has awakened to the existence of this problem. Immigration revived after the war, and in IDil reached 800,000. A law permitting only 0 per cent, ol the number oi foreign born living in the country in lOll! to enter each year was passed, each country having tquota. Hut even this was too much.

and under the new law the parte a l age is reduced to i, the bards i- the ten. us oi 1 wlu-n there were com para tivelv few Slavs or immigrnnfs from fie Mediterranean countries. ’! h.> r. .-v. law will admit 1 Oo.uOO persons yearly, 1.'10.0,i0 of them fo come from Ft.-at Hritain and Ireland, Germany and Fcrtutliu.il via.