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No. 7. / Vienna, 12 February 1904 — 26 Shebat 5664. / 8th Year.

Aliens Laws.

It is not of Russia that we shall speak, nor of Roumania. What we Jews have to expect from those two countries we know precisely. The worst that happens there must indeed pain us, but it cannot surprise us. That the two Anglo-Saxon States, however, in which civil liberty has hitherto proudly unfurled its banner, should set out upon the same paths as those civilised States which are otherwise far removed from them, and not in space alone — that is calculated to arouse grave apprehension.

We have known, to be sure, for some time past that America takes offence at the great Jewish immigration. The stiffening of the regulations laid down for the admission of immigrants is nothing new We have already had occasion more than once to deal with this matter in these columns. Hitherto, however, the restriction had remained within certain limits, which made the immigration of the Jewish proletariat more difficult, but did not render it directly impossible.

In the past year, however, the signs have multiplied that America does not intend to halt upon the road it has once taken. It may be foreseen that further restrictive measures are likely to be proposed in the near future, and it is very probable that a majority will be found for them. Nor is it any accident that Mr. Arnold White should have come forward precisely now with fresh proposals for regulating Jewish migration. Mr. White is no novice in this question, and he knows very well what he is doing when he proposes that England and the United States should not give up their territory for the solution of this question. It is not his opinion alone that he expresses in his proposals, even if for the present he must bear the responsibility for his action alone.

Mr. Arnold White knows the temper of America as he knows that of England. For a long while past the immigration question has occupied English politicians. The Alien Immigration Commission, which gathered material by way of an enquête, has already made its conclusions known to the English Parliament. The type of the undesirable alien will soon be as familiar to the English Government's agents as it is to those of America. And while Lord Milner expressly declares that the Transvaal needs a strong immigration — only it has not yet been decided whether it is to come from Central Africa or from Eastern Asia — the Jews are in fact denied landing in South Africa as far as possible, even before the pious wishes of the opponents of immigration have become law in the mother country.

The good example which America has set, which Cape Colony has followed, and which England is about to imitate, cannot remain without influence upon the other English colonies, and further upon those States which likewise possess colonies. It is a grim prospect that opens before the wandering Jews. It is made darker still by the fact that it is by no means displeasing to the well-to-do Jews of the Anglo-Saxon States. These Jews, who are already in safety, feel very well that their tranquillity would be threatened were the Jewish immigration to grow further. It is an intelligible egoism if they resist a worsening of their position. Intelligible, but not excusable.

They above all ought from the very beginning to have supported most zealously every movement which aimed at a systematic direction of the migration and settlement of the Jews. From their own most immediate interest alone, even if — which we by no means wish to assert — they had really lost all sympathy with the afflicted of their people and their faith. Nor is it to be seen how they could evade this duty; for in spite of all prohibitions of immigration, the emigration of the desperate — and these are millions of Jews — will not be stayed. Wherever these poor people may turn, the effect of their appearance must make itself felt across whole countries; the final solution will only be delayed, and made only more entangled.

We can no longer today take the standpoint that we remain untouched when in