States, and was the precursor of the present Selective Act, its quota list for all countries is herewith presented. By means of the tabulation the reader will be enabled to make comparisons with the quotas of the law of 1924.

This law did not apply to persons who had resided for more than a year in countries on the American continents or on islands adjacent. It was provided that not more than twenty per cent. of the annual quota of any nationality could be admitted in any one month.

MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE ACT OF 1924

Restriction of immigration, which had been on trial for three years, became a definite and national policy with the passage of the "Immigration Act of 1924," which was signed by the President on March 26, and went into effect on the first day of July. The chief features of this Act are: (1) It presents the law of 1917 as the basic immigration act; (2) it retains the principle of numerical "quota " limitations, as laid down in the Act of 1921; (3) it changes the quota basis from the census of 1910 to that of 1890 and reduces the percentage admissible in a year from three to two per cent.; (4) it provides a method of selection of immigrants at the source; (5) it carries numerous administrative features designed to lessen hardships on individual immigrants; (6) it excludes all persons ineligible to become citizens under our naturalization laws; (7) it provides a "non-quota" class, which excludes unmarried children under eighteen and parents over fifty-five years of age, husbands and wives of United States citizens, immigrants returning from visits abroad, persons who have resided continuously at least two years in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, and countries in Central and South America or adjacent islands, clergymen, members of learned professions, certain skilled laborers, and bona fide students.

IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF NEW LAW

The new law automatically reduces immigration from countries in southern and eastern Europe, and cuts down Full text may be found in Appendix D.

arrivals from the pre-war number of a million a year to about one hundred and sixty thousand. It was shown in the chapters dealing specifically with the United States that the sources of our immigrants had changed greatly during the last decade of the nineteenth century, and in the years of the twentieth up to the World War. The adoption of the census of 1890 as a quota basis instead of that of 1910, as in the Emergency Act of 1921, therefore meant practically closing the gates to the new immigration. The immediate changes brought about by the new law are on the surface. What the later effect on national traits will be is a matter of interesting speculation. For reasons that are obvious, the question of restriction has not been of such moment in other countries.

EXAMPLES OF NEW QUOTAS

The sharpest reductions under the new law, which admits. a total of 161,184, are seen in the following list:

The above figures may be compared with those previously given in the complete quota list under the Act of 1921.

The law provides a minimum quota of 100.

Certain numerical changes will take place after 1927, as will be seen by reference to the law.

JAPAN AND THE NEW LAW

A regrettable feature in connection with the passage of the Act of 1924 was the outcry of Japan against Japanese exclusion. Since 1908, immigration from Japan had been regulated by a "Gentlemen's Agreement," an arrangement brought about by Mr. Elihu Root, Secretary of State, and Baron Aoki, Japanese Ambassador to the United States. This was a brilliant example of secret diplomacy which regulated Japanese migration to this country for sixteen years. The only official information the public ever had concerning the agreement was a brief statement in the immigration report for 1908 to the effect that the Japanese Government was to "discourage" emigration of its people and would issue passports only to laborers of certain classes, former residents, parents, wives, and children of residents, and settled agriculturists.

RESTRICTION NOT A LABEL OF INFERIORITY

It is unfortunate that attempts to select settlers should be regarded as a declaration of superiority by the nation attempting it. For practical reasons the great immigrant-receiving countries have found it necessary to decide what their dominant racial strain shall be. This does not mean an arrogant trampling under foot of other strains, and should not be so regarded. Future years may show the error of present policies, but the experience of the United States alone in the matter of the "open door" indicates the wisdom of a change.

QUESTION OF SURPLUS POPULATION

Coming now to the second part of our inquiry, which deals with overcrowded lands, or countries where a deep stratum of the poor can at best make only a beggarly living, one is constrained to ask what is to become of such people when the doors of the newer and more prosperous countries are practi

cally closed to them. Or one may ask succinctly in the words of Professor Fairchild:

"Has a nation whose population is extending beyond its own resources to such an extent as to threaten its standard of living a right to look for an outlet in some other land? Or has the time come to deny the right of a nation which is suffering stringency because of an unrestrained growth of population to seek relief by encroaching on the territory of a more fortunate or more self-controlled country ?" 6

National procedure as we have observed it in this study apparently answers the former of Professor Fairchild's questions in the negative and the latter affirmatively. This is the attitude of the modern world. The dire distress of teeming millions can be relieved only by the adoption of newer methods of extracting a livelihood, and in a rational control of fecundity. People who breed like flies may die like flies is the dictum of the twentieth century. It is indeed the law of nature, the fulfillment of which can be postponed for one historic moment by unrestricted migration, but can not be permanently set aside.

It should be noted here that there are opportunities for Oriental expansion outside of the seven countries we have discussed. Formosa, Corea, Manchuria, Siberia, and some of her own islands are open to the industrious and adaptable Japanese. Practically the whole continent of South America is open to southern Europeans, while there are great undeveloped regions in Africa that, with the application of scientific methods, could be made habitable. Those sections under the control of Great Britain will doubtless, as in the case of Kenya, be reserved for white British settlers.

At the close of a survey such as the one here undertaken, there is bound to emerge a strengthened realization of the international significance of immigration, and a hope that

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, January, 1921, page 201.

Suggested by Jenks and Lauck: The Immigration Problem, page

in the future, the various nations affected by streams of migration will co-operate at least by profiting from each other's experience to devise far-seeing plans for its control.

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR PART IV

Cox, Harold: Problem of Population, 1923.

Davie, M. R.: A Constructive Immigration Policy, 1923.

Fairchild, H. P.: Immigration, 1911.

Jenks, J. W., and Lauck, W. J.: The Immigration Problem, 1922. Kellor, Frances: The Future of Immigration, 1922.

Reuter, W. J.: Population Problems, 1923.

Russell, Bertrand: Problem of China, 1922.

Stoddard, Lothrop: The Rising Tide of Color, 1920.