A Commission whose remit concerns us closely presented its report yesterday evening. The Commission's goals are officially formulated as follows: ‘to enquire into the character and extent of the evils which are attributed to the unrestricted immigration of aliens to the Metropolis and to advise what remedial or precautionary measures it is desirable to adopt in this country, and to report whether it is desirable to impose any, and if so, what, restrictions on such immigration’.

The Commission began its pleasant labours back in March 1902, and so far, it has met publicly forty-nine times and collected 175 most competent opinions. Moreover, it has sent Major E. Gordon to Russia and Romania in order to study in situ the causes of such an undesirable phenomenon.

What Mr Gordon said after he came back from his trip I shall not disclose: you know these causes every bit as well as he does. I shall move directly to the definition of the evils we are responsible for.

In financial terms, aliens are remarkably non-burdensome for the Metropolis. In 1901, there were 286,925 people here, of whom only 256 were receiving poverty relief.

Prison expenses on our fellow countrymen are, God knows, not particularly extensive either, although I am proud to say that some progress in this regard is nonetheless noticeable: in 1899, only 1,113 of us were put in English prisons, whereas in 1903, there were 1,864, and the following details are noteworthy:

These are impressive numbers, but the English as enlightened mariners are mindful of the growth of their own crime rate and so are not especially inclined to claim this puny percentage for us.

In fact, aliens have even proved useful to England: the Commission has acknowledged that the best tailors and shoemakers are Russian and Polish Jews, and the best turners are Romanian. Hence the competition, which is all the more extensive because foreign labourers have substantially fewer wants than English ones. The English workman needs a daily bath, the English workman wants his paper, his roast beef, his ale – and the foreigner can easily go without all that.