New Clause. — (Employment of Aliens.)

Part of Orders of the Day — Aliens Restriction Bill. – in the House of Commons at on 22 October 1919.

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Photo of Sir Herbert Nield Sir Herbert Nield , Ealing

Surely that is almost a nursery truth. I suppose we may take it that most of us understand that, and that we understood it when we put down this Clause. The hon. Member not having been a member of the Standing Committee, does not know that this Clause was carried in Committee, and it was carried on Second Reading, as amended, and it was only when the Motion was put that the Clause stand part of the Bill that the ingenuity of my right hon. Friend (Mr. Shortt) and of his secretaries—who were rather numerous then, because it was a transition period—succeeded in getting three more members into the Division, with the result that the final admission of the Clause to this Bill was defeated by three. A highly commendable business for the British public to know that legislation here may be materially influenced by three votes in Committee ! The point here has to do with the pledges that were given to the electors last December. Have hon. Members taken the trouble to get the verbatim Reports taken in Committee on this Bill? I trust they have, because it would justify the taking of the vote upstairs, and it would also enable them to answer a good many questions in their constituencies when the time comes to deal with them. If hon. Members have read these Reports, they would see that very early in the proceedings upon this Clause, which we carried against the Government, these pledges were very fully and amply discussed. I will turn not merely to the pledges of the Government, which we know had relation to enemy aliens mainly, but I will turn to this particular question of employment.

I quite understand how the hon. Member for Whitechapel would feel if a Clause of this sort were passed. So far as they are still aliens who have no vote they are no doubt able considerably to influence the votes of others. Whitechapel of to-day is considerably different from the Whitechapel of forty years ago. If the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool had been made in 1880, I would have accepted every word of it. Up to that time this country had benefited considerably by the influx of those who fled from persecution abroad and settled, like the weavers in Spitalfields and Norwich, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. I accept that every immigration which took place down to the year 1880 was in the main if not wholly beneficial to this country from the point of view of trade. If the hon. Member for Staffordshire has any evidence of objections raised, when the Edict of Nantes was revoked, to these people coming over here, I should like to have some reference to the meagre reports of the Debates in Parliament of that day to show that there was organised opposition. This country has learned its lesson since 1880. In 1889 it was found necessary to appoint a Royal Commission in inquire into the conditions of aliens entering into this country. That Commission reported that the condition of things was very undesirable and that steps must be taken to control it. I wish sincerely that those steps had been taken, because in connection with proposals for alien legislation the most marvellous thing is that, however enthusiastic we may be about it and however successful in getting an Act through the House of Commons, its administration is sterilised and we get no real benefit from the legislation that is passed.

I may refer to one or two conclusions of the Commission of 1889. Up to 1880 the East End of London was relatively free from anything like organised immigration, but of those who came afterwards it was stated that they are impoverished, in a destitute condition, deficient in cleanliness, practically with no sanitary habits, that they had been subjected to no medical examination on embarkation and arrival, and that they were liable to introduce disease. I agree that the development of sanitation since then has done something to counteract the latter point, but it was also stated that among them are criminals—prostitutes and persons of that character—beyond the ordinary percentage of the native population of the country from which they come. The hon. Member for Whitechapel has taken the trouble to analyse the returns of convictions, whereas if he knows the undesirable alien he should know how unusually adroit and clever he is when he gets into the criminal Courts, and has to deal with open-handed English justice, in escaping the net and not being convicted, and if he had given us, instead of the convictions, the number of prosecutions, then we should have had something to go on.