Immigration Rights?

Michael Huemer’s book The Problem of Political Authority,  pages 142-143:

Marvin is in need of food, without which he will suffer from malnutrition or starvation. He plans to travel to a nearby marketplace, where he will be able to trade for food. But before he can reach the marketplace, he is accosted by Sam, who does not want Marvin to trade in the marketplace, for two reasons. First, Sam’s daughter is going to be shopping in the marketplace, and Sam fears that Marvin might bid up the price of food. Some vendors might even run out of bread if too many people come to the marketplace. Second, Marvin comes from a different culture from most people presently at the marketplace, and Sam fears that Marvin might influence other people and thus alter the culture of the marketplace. Sam decides to solve the problem by force. He points his gun at Marvin and orders Marvin to turn around. The starving Marvin is thus forced to return home empty-handed. 

Sam’s reasons for coercing Marvin in this story are clearly inadequate. Furthermore, Sam will be culpable for whatever harms Marvin suffers as a result of being unable to reach the marketplace; they will be harms that Sam inflicted upon Marvin. If Marvin starves to death, then Sam will have killed him. This is true even though Sam was not responsible for Marvin’s initial situation of being hungry and out of food; it is true because Sam actively prevented Marvin from obtaining more food. If a person is starving, and you refuse to give him food, then you allow him to starve. But if you take the extra step of coercively interfering with his obtaining food from someone else, then you do no merely allow him to starve; you starve him. The same point applies to lesser harms: If, for example, Marvin merely suffers malnutrition as a result of being unable to reach the marketplace, Sam will have inflicted this harm upon him. 

The behavior of Sam in the story is analogous to that of the government of any modern country that excludes poor immigrants. Potential immigrants from developing nations come to participate in the marketplaces of wealthier countries. The governments of the wealthier countries routinely forcibly exclude these potential immigrants. As a result, many suffer greatly diminished life prospects. The government does not merely allow harms to befall these would-be immigrants. If the government merely stood by passively and refused to give aid to potential immigrants, then it would be allowing harms to occur. But it does not stand by passively; the government of every wealthy country in the world deliberately hires armed guards to forcibly exclude or expel unwanted persons. This coercive intervention constitutes an active infliction of harm upon them, just as Sam inflicts harm on Marvin in the story above. 

The most common reasons given for immigration restrictions are twofold. First, that new immigrants compete with existing Americans in the labor market, thus driving down wages for unskilled labor and making it more difficult for American workers to find jobs. Second, that if too many immigrants enter the country, they will alter the country’s culture. The first concern is analogous to Sam’s concern about Marvin’s competing with Sam’s daughter in the marketplace. It is not permissible to use force against another person simply to prevent a third party from suffering economic disadvantage through normal marketplace competition. The second concern is analogous to Sam’s concern about the culture of the marketplace. It is not permissible to use force against another person simply to prevent that person from influencing the culture of one’s society in undesired ways. 

The migrants Australia don't hunt down

We have grown accustomed to the tragic news of the migrant boat-people and their desperate attempts to reach the safety and security of Australia, which the Australian government is determined to frustrate.

But little appears to be said about the “flood”, as the BBC puts it, of  young Europeans on temporary working visas is squeezing young Australians out of the jobs market. Most arrive on one-year working holiday permits, which can be extended or upgraded to longer employment visas that can lead to residency and eventually citizenship although the process can take years.

"If we look at between 15-19-year-olds, we have 14.5% unemployment. Still well below many other places in the world but still significant enough to say that we aren't absorbing and giving skill opportunities to many young Australians, so the government has failed to get the balance right," says Tony Sheldon, from the Australian Transport Workers Union. "That means that labour has been brought in as an alternative, which is being more exploited, has less rights and is seen as a cheap form of labour but also an exploited form of labour." He fears that foreigners could also be under-paid and mistreated by unscrupulous bosses.

Academics now worry that a lack of training could increasingly leave young Australians unable to compete with temporary foreign workers especially in low or unskilled jobs.

 Michaela Kelly, from Drogheda, earns twice as much working in an office in Sydney than she did in Ireland. Like many Irish backpackers Michaela is well qualified with a degree in business.But with youth unemployment so stubbornly high in Australia, soaring up to 40% in parts of its major cities does she feel guilty that she could be taking a job from a local? "Is that bad if I say no?" she asks. "Irish workers come over here to work and they work hard because at home you are made to work hard, whereas Australians over here are just so laid back, they put things off and don't do it, basically. So, I don't feel bad."

Where are all the detention camps set up in Papua New Guinea to deter those, dare Mailstrom, say it - white Anglo-Saxons. Isn't it time for a fair deal for the peoples of all the world to better their lives?

But we arer the same the world over

It is all too easy to blame immigrants for causing problems such as unemployment, bad housing or crime. Whether it is Eastern Europeans or Asians, a finger can always be pointed at ‘them’ for making things worse for ‘us’. It is often objected that immigrants come in order to claim benefits and live off the backs of ‘locals'. But there is no reason to think this is true in the vast majority of cases since benefits are low, and most migrants are not entitled to them anyway plus the migration journey can be expensive and arduous, sometimes fatal, with many dying suffocating in containers. Many 'natives' cannot contain their indignation that immigrants should try to come here at all and talk about immigration undermining 'indigenous' culture is so much hogwash. A nation is not something natural but an artificial idea that has been constructed over the centuries, based on accidents of geography and history. From fish and chips to curry and pizza, food in Britain is a mixture just as much as the inhabitants of these islands are. Without the constant propaganda against "foreigners", where would "nationalist" feeling come from? Such feelings are not inborn. Small children are not hostile to other children with different-coloured skin, any more than they are to those with different-coloured hair, or different-coloured shoes. Why should they be? Those travelling long distances through fear or desperation are people no different to ourselves.

Migrants are rarely well off in the country they move to, forming an underclass with little if any security of employment or housing. Immigrants often receive low paying work in the service industry ( the 3-D jobs, dirty dangerous and difficult), once they enter the developed capitalist system and they can never afford the education to gain higher paying jobs. As a result they stay in the service industry their entire lives, being some of the most lowly-paid members of the working class of wage and salary earners.The immigrants who now try to settle in Britain come at the bottom of the social scale, taking the worst houses, accepting the worst conditions. Likely to be of more importance is the perception (rightly or wrongly) that Britain is a fair and open society and the desire to be with family and friends already in the UK. Such primary reasons stem largely from the foreign policy of the UK government, in presenting itself as a bastion of the free world whilst simultaneously exerting links over far-flung lands. It is taught in school that capitalist countries are mosaic countries, small units of various cultures existing within a larger schema or government. This view is marketed so that potential immigrants will not have to leave their customs behind and still be able to reap the so-called rewards of capitalist society. Yet only those who assimilate into the capitalist system are able to experience the "freedoms" it promises, often at the cost to their own culture.

While it is true that the decision to economically migrate is not taken solely on labour market factors, and the nature of the political regime and the historic links may well have a strong determining role, nevertheless the demand for labour to be attracted to concentrated areas is a structural feature of capitalism. Since its inception, capitalism has drawn workers into highly concentrated areas of development in order to satisfy its labour needs. All those people seeking migration are simply obeying the imperative that they must try to find a place to work; and no amount of government restrictions will change that fact. Hence, migrants with even a smattering of English, and a desire to work for a bearable living standard or to pay off debts to people-traffickers, choose countries like Britain.

No ruling class is ever completely unanimous. Capitalism creates conflicts within each ruling class; no two capitalists have interests which are exactly the same. The question of immigration causes disputes within the British ruling class. Some want to establish the principle that when a particular industry or trade is short of workers, its owners have the right to bring in workers from any other country, and thus help to counteract the danger of having to raise wages and salaries. Some other members of the capitalist class feel it would be a mistake to let in too many workers from other countries. Some members of the capitalist class take advantage of any "foreign" immigration to whip up nationalist feeling, using the perception among workers (who have the votes) that there is some threat to themselves from competitors from overseas. Those who are in possession of little are easily frightened by the threat of some other coming to take it away. The appearance of jobs going to these “foreigners” whilst their “own” go without work reinforces the illusion that migration causes unemployment. World socialists have argued that racism is usually fuelled and ignited by poverty and fear, and therefore cannot be removed until the cause is.

So while many of those seeking to enter the UK might be well-qualified machine operators, engineers, builders, doctors etc (as they are), if the capitalist economy is going through yet another of its inevitable cyclical crises, there'll be no employers or money to pay for these much-needed workers. Such economic crises make migrants unwanted. They put politicians under maximum pressure to keep them out to minimise state expenditure, spending which reduces the nation's profitability the bigger it gets, and is especially disliked when making profits is then as difficult as it gets. Increased racism and nationalism also become more likely as high unemployment and poverty produce considerable social suffering, provoking the pained to find and lash out at those they think responsible, and politicians in need of scapegoats, chauvinistic bigots and money-mad tabloids all eager to point some out.

The problems we face are not caused by workers from other parts of the world migrating to this part, but by the capitalist system of class ownership and production for profit instead of the common ownership and production geared to satisfying people's needs which will be the case in socialism. The socialist response is simply to point out that poverty and social disruption are caused by capitalism, a social system which requires the vast majority of the population to rely on selling their labour power to survive. With or without immigration there will be unemployment, homelessness, crime. What an extraordinary notion it is that so many members of the human race should be forced to remain on that small section of the earth's surface in which they happened to be born. Who gave the world's rulers the right to tell us which bit of land we should live on? How much longer are we willing to sit around and let a tiny minority divide us? Socialists understand that the thing which makes workers leave behind their communities, and go to a place where their language is not spoken, is the wages system itself, which swats humans around the globe like a kitten playing with its toys. This underlies the need for us to recognise our identical position with regards to the wages system, and work together, as workers across the world, across boundaries, to create a commonly owned planet where all can live in security.What socialists envisage is that when the resources of the Earth have become the common heritage of all the human race then the world would no longer be divided into separate states, and people would be free to travel anyway in the world without needing a passport or visa and whether to live or to work or simply for pleasure.

Unique amongst all political parties, left or right, the Socialist Party has no national axe to grind. We side with no particular state or government. We have no time for border controls. The world over, workers must do what they can individually and collectively to survive and resist capitalism. In many parts of the world that means escaping political tyranny or economic poverty. Workers should try and resist taking sides. We must not blame another worker for our poverty.

Green card soldiers - citizens in death

A 100 foreign-born members of the U.S. military earned American citizenship by dying in Iraq. As the war continues, more and more immigrants are becoming citizens in death — and more and more families are grappling with deeply conflicting feelings about exactly what the honor means. (From this article )

Jose Gutierrez , a young ambitious immigrant from Guatemala who dreamed of becoming an architect. In death, the young Marine was showered with honors his family could only have dreamed of in life. His sister was flown in from Guatemala for his memorial service, where a Roman Catholic cardinal presided and top military officials saluted his flag-draped coffin. And yet, his foster mother agonized as she accompanied his body back for burial in Guatemala City: Why did Jose have to die for America in order to truly belong?

As Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who oversaw Gutierrez's service, put it .
"There is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship," Mahony wrote to President Bush in April 2003. He urged the president to grant immediate citizenship to all immigrants who sign up for military service in wartime."They should not have to wait until they are brought home in a casket,"

Cpl. Juan Alcantara, a native of the Dominican Republic, was killed Aug. 6, 2007. Buried by a cardinal and eulogized by a congressman .
"What use is a piece of paper?" cried Fredelinda Pena , his sister ."He can't take the oath from a coffin," she sobbed.

Smuggled across the Mexican border in his mother's arms when he was 2 months old, Jose Garibay was just 21 when he died in Nasiriyah. The Costa Mesa police department made him an honorary police officer, something he had hoped one day to become. America made him a citizen. His mother, Simona Garibay, couldn't conceal her bewilderment and pain. It seemed, she said in interviews after the funeral, that more value was being placed on her son's death than on his life.

"Immigrants are lured into service and then used as political pawns or cannon fodder," said Dan Kesselbrenner, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a program of the National Lawyers Guild. "It is sad thing to see people so desperate to get status in this country that they are prepared to die for it."

Nearly 37,000 soldiers have been naturalized. And 109 who lost their lives have been granted posthumous citizenship.The right to become an American is not automatic for those who die in combat. Families must formally apply for citizenship within two years of the soldier's death, and not all choose to do so.
"What good would it do?" Saveria Romeo says of her son, Army Staff Sgt. Vincenzo Romeo, who was born in Calabria, died in Iraq "It won't bring back my son."

Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez Del Solar was 20 when he was killed by a bomb . His father has become an outspoken peace activist who travels the country organizing anti-war marches, giving speeches and working with counter-recruitment groups to dissuade young Latinos from joining the U.S. military.

Racism in Immigration Detention Centres

Widespread racism was exposed inside Britain's immigration removal centres last night in an official report.
The Borders and Immigration Agency (BIA) said its detainees had been called "black bastards", "donkeys" and "animals" and described the atmosphere as "distressing and turbulent" at one centre and "tense" at another.

It launched its official audit of racism - published yesterday - after a TV documentary broadcast in 2005 uncovered racist abuse at the Oakington removal centre in Cambridgeshire.

The agency found the worst racism at Harmondsworth, a large centre near Heathrow .
"Regular taunting of detainees by some officers goes unchallenged," the BIA report found. Repeated patterns of alleged racist incidents were missed by the in-house investigation process, it added. There were even "staff on staff" racial problems at Harmondsworth between colleagues

At Scotland's only centre, Dungavel in Strathaven, South Lanarkshire some residents felt they were denied access to the kitchen "as a result of bias or the racist attitude of staff".

Ex-prisoners awaiting deportation are filling many of the UK's other nine removal centres. At one, Colnbrook, which, like Harmondsworth, is near Heathrow, they told auditors they would rather be in jail than in immigration detention.

Swedish Meat-Balls

Liberal Sweden , my ar*e !!

Swedish authorities have recently ruled that failed asylum seekers from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, can be sent back as there is no "armed conflict" there.

The Swedish immigration agency said that Swedish law says there is no armed conflict in Mogadishu because rebels there do not control territory. Sweden automatically grants asylum to anyone from an area in which something "more like your traditional civil war" exists, where "rebellion forces have territorial control in a part of the city, the country or the region," senior immigration official Dan Eliasson told AFP news agency. "This is not the case in Mogadishu," said Mr Eliasson, the general director of the Swedish Migration Board.

This after 17 people were killed in a mortar attack on Mogadishu's main market on Thursday. The UN says one million people are living rough in Somalia - including 60% of Mogadishu's population. About 200,000 people have fled the city in the last month. The UN's describes Somalia as the world's worst humanitarian disaster . Somali asylum seekers in Sweden can be sent home unless they prove lives personally under threat.

The immigration service also ruled last July that there was "no armed conflict in Iraq" on the same grounds, determining that Sweden could send Iraqi asylum seekers back to the war-torn country if they could not prove they would personally be threatened there.

Together towards a new world

The Irish diaspora consists at the top estimate and interpretation contains over 80 million people, which is over fourteen times the population of the island of Ireland itself (5.9 million in 2006). The governement of Ireland defines it in legal terms: the Irish diaspora are those of Irish nationality who habitually reside outside of the island of Ireland. This includes Irish citizens who have emigrated abroad and their children also grand children in some cases ), who are Irish citizens by descent under Irish law. . Under this legal definition, the Irish diaspora is considerably smaller than popular belief - some 3 million persons, of whom 1.2 million are Irish-born emigrants.

Therefore one would think that the Irish would understand the need for others to leave their lands and seek out new shores . The i read this BBC report with interest .

Siobhan O'Donahue , director of a drop-in centre that looks after immigrants in Dublin , describes it thus :-

"We saw them essentially as units of labour. We didn't see them as people with social and community needs. "

An economic boom turned a relatively-poor, agricultural nation into a "Celtic Tiger". To fuel this growth, Ireland needed to allow in workers from the new Eastern European members of the European Union . The result is that now, more than one in seven people in Ireland was born outside the country. Ireland invited immigrants to come and work, without giving any thought to their wider impact. The planning and infrastructure wasn't put in place . Nobody has sought fit to deal with the social needs : schooling, housing, access to healthcare.

The Education Department , for instance , had belatedly realised there were not enough places for immigrants' children . They had been turned down by the local schools. The result was that they ended up in an emergency facility, one that caters almost exclusively for boys and girls of African or Arab origin.

"I would rather my children knew how Irish children live," says one mother there, disappointed to see her son going to school only with other black children.

The Herald carries an article that Scotland needs to attract 20,000 immigrants a year to counter a declining population and to save the economy from collapse over the next 30 years, a government-backed report warns . The alternative is an impoverished future, with a shrinking younger workforce supporting an ageing population. It predicts that by 2017 the country's population may fall below five million for the first time since the 1940s.

The report says "In the last few years, Scotland has recorded clear net in-migration gains. Maintaining or improving this current balance of migration could prove key to addressing the challenges posed by Scotland's ageing population and projected population decline."

Yet Scotland follows the example of Ireland .

Michael Luby, national sales manager at the Big Issue

"It's unbelievable," he said "we're seeing Romanian people come over here expecting work, only to find that they don't get access to the housing, benefits and services any other people get..."

An Edinburgh landlord has been profiting from housing over 50 Romanian migrants in squalid conditions . One of the occupants described the conditions as “misery” while others made allegations of mistreatment .

Yet the mass media choose to concentrate on perpetuating urban myths about the arrival of foreign workers , furthering divisions and mistrust . Eastern European bar staff and doormen are now among the most common victims of racial abuse and assault in Edinburgh.

In 2006 some 400,000 people left Britain, more than half of whom were UK citizens. Britain is becoming a country of revolving doors rather than overflowing floodgates .

A Voice From The Aliens

On my web-travels i came across this article . In the current climate of anti -Eastern European worker and demands for even more restrictions on immigration i thought it appropriate to highlight .

A Voice From The Aliens is the first leaflet against immigration controls. It was produced in
1895. It is part of the hidden history of immigration controls . The leaflet was published in the name of several Jewish trade unions. Jewish refugees started to come to this country in the 1880s – fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe and Tsarist Russia. At this time there were no immigration controls. However there was very quickly racist agitation for controls. Unfortunately the trade union movement – and many of the early socialist groups – took up the demand for restrictions . The leaflet was launched at meetings in London and Leeds where the main speaker was Eleanor Marx – the daughter of Karl Marx.

Those who today argue for “fair” or “just” immigration controls ought to realize that over a century ago trade unionists were fighting controls in principle. They rejected all notions of “fair” controls and instead appealed for workers solidarity against a system that exploits all workers .

A Voice From The Aliens

About the Anti-Alien Resolution of the Cardiff Trade Union Congress.

We, the organised Jewish workers of England, taking into consideration the Anti-Alien Resolution, and the uncomplimentary remarks of certain delegates about the Jewish workers specially, issue this leaflet, wherewith we hope to convince our English fellow workers of the untruthfulness, unreasonableness, and want of logic contained in the cry against the foreign worker in general, and against the Jewish worker in particular.

It is, and always has boon, the policy of the ruling classes to attribute the sufferings and miseries of the masses (which are natural consequences of class rule and class exploitation) to all sorts of causes except the real ones. The cry against the foreigner is not merely peculiar to England ; it is international. Everywhere he is the scapegoat for other's sins. Every class finds in him an enemy. So long as the Anti-Alien sentiment in this country was confined to politicians, wire-pullers, and to individual working men, we, the organised aliens, took no heed; but when this ill-founded sentiment has been officially expressed by the organised working men of England, thon we believe that it is time to lift our voices and argue the matter out.

It has been proved by great political economists that a working man in a country where machinery is greatly developed produces in a day twice as many commodities as his daily wage enables him to consume .

For one half, he himself is the market; for the rest (the surplus), a market must be found elsewhere. Until the market is found, and the surplus sold off, the worker must remain idle—unemployed.

The greater the producing power, the larger the surplus. The larger the surplus is, the longer is the period of unemployment. The larger the number of the unemployed, the keener and fiercer is the competition for work. Consequently. the harder are the times and the greater the sufferings of the worker. Who, then, is to be blamed ? Surely we cannot blame the foreign working man, who is as much a victim of the industrial system as is the English working man. Neither can we blame the machine which displaces human labour. The only party at fault is the English working class itself, which has the power, but neither the sense nor courage, to make the machines serve and benefit the whole nation, instead of leaving them an a source of profit for one class. To punish the alien worker for the sin of the native capitalist is like the man who struck the boy because ho was not strong enough to strike his father.

We will assume for the sake of argument, that the foreign worker is injurious to the English worker, and that the Government will prohibit him from coming hero. What then England as a Free Trade country would thereby suffer severely; because the same commodities which the foreign worker used to produce here (being at the same time a source of income to the country), he will then produce abroad—much cheaper, too, because the cost of living is lower there. Those commodities will then be imported here. Will this benefit the English worker? Let Mr. Freak and Mr. Inskip answer...we will prove to our English fellow workers that immigration or emigration in no way affects the condition of the working men or the state of the labour market.

...In Germany the immigration is one-tenth of the emigration .In the United States it is vice versa. Still, the wages of a tailor in Germany is 15s., whilst in the United States it is 58s. What will our opponents say to this? Again, in 1831-40 the immigration in the United States was 699,000.In 1881-89 it was 4,792,000; still, in the former period the daily wage of a tailor was 4s. 6d., whilst in the latter period it was 8s. 4d. With these statistics in view we can safely say, that if the English worker has reason to be dissatisfied with his lot, let him not blame his foreign fellow working man; let him rather study the social and labour question—he will then find out where the shoe pinches.

Leaving the foreign worker in general, we will now deal with the Jewish worker in particular.

We, the Jewish workers, have been spoken of as a blighting blister upon the English trades and workers, as men to whose hearts it is impossible to appeal, and were it not for us, the condition of the native worker would be much improved, lie would have plenty of work, good wages, and what not. Well, let us look into facts; let us examine the condition of such workers with whom the Jew never comes in contact, such as the agricultural labourer, the docker, the miner, the weaver, the chain maker, ship builder, bricklayer and many others. Examine their condition, dear reader, and answer: Is there any truth in the remark that we are a “ blighting blister " upon the English worker?

It is alleged that we are cutting down the wages of the English worker, and no proof is given in support of such an allegation. We on the other hand claim that English workers are reducing our wages and we will prove our claim .

That the ready-made clothing trade, the second class-made to order—tailoring trade, the mantle, waterproof clothing, cap, slipper, and cheap shoe trades have been created by the Jewish workers in this country—no one who knows anything about it will deny. Mr. Booth in his book " Life and Labour of the People," declares "That the ready-made clothing trade is not an invasion on the employment of the English tailor, but an industrial discovery."

In the report of the Board of Trade on the effects immigration, speaking of the boot and shoe trade we find the following "The foreign Jews are, to a large extent, engaged on a common class of boots and shoes, some of which probably could not profitably be made by English labour under the existing statement, and might hence cease to be produced, or at least leave London (either for the provinces or abroad) were it not for the presence of Jewish labour." The reader should not fall into the mistake that the Jewish worker can produce the cheap class of boots because he will work for lower wages—far from it. In fact, the Jewish workers earn better wages in this cheap class than the English do in the better class. This is due to their great abilities in turning out large quantities. In a circular issued by the Mantle Makers' Union to the mantle manufacturers we read the following ;—" Germany and France, though behind England in the evolution of other trades, were ahead of her in the mantle trade. They have created a new branch of the trade in question. They have combined the quality, style, and workmanship of the bespoke tailor made, with nearly the cheapness of the cheap ready made. How did they do it ? By applying the present mode of capitalistic manufacture — that is, production on a large scale, use of machinery and the division of labour, to the bespoke tailor- made garment. Thus England has been a market for Germany and France. Some years ago, certain English manufacturers realised that the same class of garments could be made in this country. Circumstances brought to England the class of workers, experts in that work, and the trade is now rapidly growing."' This is again corroborated by an article on the mantle trade, which appeared in a German periodical, the Neue Zeit, No. 39, of the year 1893, where the writer points out to his countrymen the cause of the diminution of the mantle trade in Germany. " The cause is," he says, " the transference of the trade to England by the Russian and Polish Jews." We could fill a book with quotations, statements, and figures, in favour of our claim. From what has been said, the truth-seeking reader will see how groundless is the accusation that we displace English labour.

Not only are we engaged in trades which we have introduced, but we have to a very great extent provided work fur the English workers. According to the report mentioned above, the Jewish workers that are employed in the boot and shoe trade are less than 1 and a half per cent, of the total number of workers employed in that trade. The export of boots and shoes from the United Kingdom from the year 1873 till 1893 increased about 25 per cent. Taking into consideration that the Jewish products are mostly exported, and that their influx into the boot and shoe trade took place during that period, is it not reasonable to assume that the great increase in trade is to some extent due to them?

But that is nothing to what has been accomplished in the clothing trades. The trousers and vests are made entirely by English women ; the weaving, cutting, book-keeping, and all work connected with the counting house is performed only by English men and women.

We will also remind our English friends of the fact that when the Jewish tailors of Leeds struck in 1888, the English workers in the cloth mills were put on half time.

When you, our English fellow workers, cry out so loud against our competition, while you fail to prove that it exists at all, when you call us a blighting blister, then what ought we to say to our English sister-slaves who are actually taking the broad out of our mouths by working for half the price, and are driving us out of the workshops which we have built up ? Can they deny that they are making a mantle for a shilling, for which we have received two shillings?

We feel their throat-cutting competition in every trade which we have created, and which they have stepped into. Those who investigate the subject readily admit it. Thus we read in the report of the Board of Trade the following statements:—"At present the Jews need only fear the competition with the English female labour." Again :—" In the machining department, where foreign men compete with English women, the latter are gaining ground on the former."

In view of the foregoing facts, we ask the impartial reader : Who is competing with whom, who is displacing whom—the Jew the English, or the English the Jew!

We have been branded by the Freakians and Inskippians as a class of people who are behind in the labour movement, who will not be organised, and to whose hearts it is impossible! to appeal. We bog leave to ask these gentlemen whether their appeals to our hearts during the boot makers struggle with their masters did or did not find a response ? If their memories fail them, we will recommend them to the - Strike Committee.

Did it require much appealing to our hearts in the time of the great miners' struggle to induce us to organise a committee which raised .£38 16s. 4d., besides what our Unions donated from their funds ? We could enumerate many instances which would illustrate the deep sympathy with which the hearts of the Jewish working men are filled in response to every appeal made to them by their English fellow workers. But we must refrain, lest it be said that we are " boasting."

The gentlemen named above would have the world. believe that we are blacklegs, and that we will not be organised. True, some of us are hard to be convinced of the benefits of organisation, hut when we can point to an army of 3,000 union men in London alone, out of a total of about 10,000 Jewish working men, then we believe that we can hold up our heads against either English, Scots, Irish, or Welsh.

That there are some blacklegs amongst us is nothing more than natural, you will find them among all nations. But one thing must be admitted. It is this ; That we have not amongst us an official organised army of blacklegs, such as the English can boast of, viz.," A free labour party "

We are behind the English working men in the labour movement, but were we not in front of them in the last 1st of May demonstration ?

Just as we were about to write our concluding remarks in this leaflet, we have been informed by the Press that a deputation of the organised English working men met the Government and laid before them many resolutions that were passed at the Cardiff Congress. Of all that was asked, only one thing was granted. It is this : That all alien exploiters, swindlers, blacklegs, drunkards, idlers of all sorts who have money are welcomed here; but that skilful, industrious, honest working men, who have either been out of work for a long time, or have been locked out by their masters for taking part in strikes and boycotts, and therefore have no money, shall be prohibited from coming here.

We cannot congratulate the English working-class on this achievement. We believe that with all its influence with its great organisations and enormous funds, with its millions of votes, and, above all, with its great intelligence it ought to have achieved something better and nobler. In conclusion, we appeal to all right-thinking working men of England not to be misled by some leaders who have made it their cause to engender a bitter feeling amongst the British workers against the workers of other countries. Rather hearken to the voices of such leaders as will foster a feeling of international solidarity among the working people.

In conclusion, we appeal to our fellow-workers to consider whether there is any justification whatever for regarding as the enemies of the English workers the foreign workers, who, so far from injuring them, actually bring trade here and develop new industries; whether, so far from being the enemies of the English workers, it is not rather the capitalist class (which is constantly engaged in taking trade abroad, in opening factories in China, Japan, and other countries) who is the enemy, and whether it is not rather their duty to combine against the common enemy than fight against us whose interests are identical with theirs.

Independent Tailors, Machinists, and Pressers’ Union.

United Ladies' Tailors and Mantle-Makers' Union.

United Cap Makers Union.

The International Bakers' Union.

Independent Cabinet Makers' Association.

East London Branch of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives.
Amalgamated Society of Tailors, Jewish Branch.

Slipper Makers’ Union. The International Sew-Round and Operative Union.

Upper Machiners’ Union.

Cabinet Makers' Alliance, Hebrew Branch.