Tangled Suspicions

Tangled Suspicions

To add to the immigration muddle the English Shipping Companies, The United States Lines, and Robert P. Skinner (American Consul General in London) are at odds over the administration of our immigration quota law.

Some time ago (as a precaution against having to pay a fine of $200 per capita for passengers brought to this country and denied admission, and to save the cost of returning such immigrants to Europe. British steamship companies and the United States Lines established a registration bureau to count the number of immigrants booking passage and accept no more for a given month than the immigration quota allowed.

The United States Lines withdrew from this arrangement because, being only one of twelve companies, the advantage was with its British competitors, and because of a practice of the British lines of booking immigrants before the immigrants had their passports vised by our consul. This, the United States Lines contended, often worked an injustice, because immigrants might book passage, sell their homes, and then discover that the consul would not vise their passports.

The British lines refuse to abandon this practice, and give as a reason that our consul would not, for example, vise before June 1 passports for sailing on July 1, and that it was necessary for them to make bookings longer in advance. Their real reason, it is understood, is a suspicion that when a prospective immigrant, unbooked for sailing, goes to the American consulate to get a visa, American officials there use undue influence to make him take an American vessel.

And the British lines complain, with some show of reason, that the United States Lines are putting an injustice upon the immigrants. The United States Lines have withdrawn from the registration bureau and accordingly the British lines have no means of knowing how many immigrants the United States Lines will carry in a given month--cannot judge how nearly the quota is full. Therefore an excess of immigrants may be brought to this country, will have sold their homes, and may have to return with consequent hardships.

Even these are not all the recriminations. The British lines, in their practice of booking immigrants for sailing before passports are vised, have filled what they believe will be the quotas for July, August and September. Therefore, they will accept no more bookings for those months. On the other hand, Consul General Skinner has not vised so many passports, and declares that the quotas are not filled. So he accused the British companies of trying to deflect immigrants from the United States to British colonies by announcing wrongly that the quotas are filled in advance. The British, in return, suspect him of trying to induce immigrants to use only American ships.

The result of the tangle is that the immigrant appears to be the chief loser.