teachers, priests. On some points of the territory, in four years, mushroom Polish cities have sprung up, with Polish churches, Polish shops, Polish schools, Polish theatres, Polish clubs, Polish newspapers. The immigrants have not only transported themselves to France: they have taken all their traditions with them. Living amongst themselves, they cling jealously to their customs, and are not even tempted to learn French.

This picture, it will be objected, is exceptional, peculiar to the devastated departments. We agree. Yet other examples, though less striking, could be furnished. Several parts of France exhibit compact islets of foreigners forming solid nuclei round which the fellow-countrymen of the first settlers rapidly conglomerate. In the Gers Department Italian peasants, after earning high wages, have bought the lands whose original owners had been killed. In Paris Tunisians and Moors occupy large blocks of buildings in the Thirteenth and Nineteenth Arrondissements. Close to the Hôtel de Ville Jews from Central Europe abound; in many narrow lanes of the Fourth Arrondissement, in the Marais, near the celebrated churches of St. Paul and St. Gervais, the French language is hardly spoken at all. In one of the primary schools of the Reuilly quarter, 33 per cent. of the pupils were born of foreign parents.

Mere number, however large, is not the whole difficulty. · Another point arises when we put the question 'What is, from a point of view at once moral and social, the value of those aliens ? ' The answer is discouraging. Too often they prove incapable of developing any of the solid virtues indispensable for creating, we will not say a high, but a merely acceptable, standard of citizenship. A second time we must quote from statistics. They show that criminality is much more frequent amongst the foreigners living in France than amongst the French subjects. A perusal of official documents (vide Compte Rendu Général de l'Administration de la Justice) shows that in 1913 the total number of persons convicted in France consists of

(a) Persons found guilty of crimes: 1774 French subjects, 214 aliens ;

(b) Persons found guilty of misdemeanours: 173,171 French subjects, 29,144 aliens known as such, besides 1017 more aliens whose nationality could not be ascertained.1

Taking into account the proportion of foreigners as compared with French subjects, the number of offenders is four or five times greater for the former than for the latter. And this is not peculiar to the year 1913. As early as 1885 out of 983,051 foreigners

1 As regards those minor infringements against regulations which the French Code terms 'contraventions,' we cannot quote any figures, as the returns published range the French and foreign offenders under the same heading. VOL. XCVII-No. 580.

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living in France 20,255 were found guilty of crimes or offences. In 1879 out of an aggregate number of 33,603 offenders apprehended in the Department of the Seine 2090, i.e., 6-21 per cent., were aliens; in 1883 the proportion had reached 7.34 per cent.2

On the other hand, the numbers of undesirable aliens expelled from France have always been comparatively small. In 1913, during which year, as has been said, the number of convicted aliens had reached the figure of 29,358, only 4456 of them were expelled; in 1920, notwithstanding the formidable increase of immigrants and despite the Press campaign denouncing their illdoings, the police did not expel more than 6483 of them, 5718 of whom had been found guilty of crimes or misdemeanours. Again, we should not forget another point: certain acts, though not punishable at law, and not coming, therefore, under the head of any statutory offences, are nevertheless either sins in the public eye or dangers to the nation. Here again the aliens take the lead. Too many of them lack morality, or belong to that class of social agitators and disturbers of the peace whose typical picture has been so powerfully drawn by Zola in Germinal.

Things, it will be acknowledged, have drifted far away from the conditions prevailing in the old times. We are confronted with a new problem; a new policy of immigration must be adopted. It is so much the more necessary because of the length of the frontiers of the country. The control of immigrants is easy enough in islands such as those forming Great Britain, or even in a country like the United States, whose immediate neighbours have but a thin population and can hardly constitute a dangerous source of immigration. Supervision in ports is a simple matter. But it becomes arduous, perhaps impracticable, where the aliens can pass from several densely populated Continental countries into another neighbouring one by following hidden paths across the frontier or sneaking through the field, forest, or mountain tracks. Nothing short of a continuous line of troops would be up to the task of keeping the frontiers. Such a screen itself might prove ineffective, as experience has shown.

If, then, control is to fulfil its object and not remain a merely bureaucratic formality, it must be effected within the country itself, not at its frontiers. Several French politicians have advocated this scheme. As early as June 3, 1919, the Government brought in a Bill to that effect. The text provides as follows: 'The access to the territory of the Republic is henceforth free, passports no longer being called for from foreigners.' Necessary in war-time, passports are by no means desirable under ordinary

And it may, moreover, be noted that during the same year, 1883, 3167 aliens being heads of a family without means of support fell on the poor rates of the city of Paris.

circumstances: they involve a loss of time and money, give rise to vexatious measures and soon become a hindrance to traffic and trade. They offer the further drawback of making access to the territory of a country subject to the goodwill of the authorities of the foreign nations, that may, as they judge fit, stop or limit the immigration of their fellow-citizens by simply refusing to issue them any passports.

As far as their supervision is concerned, the foreigners entering France are divided into two distinct classes:

(a) The mere passers-by, who do not wish to settle definitely in France or to carry on any business, industry or trade in the country;

(b) Those wishing to exert a special trade in France, to take up private lodgings and possibly settle in the country.

From the former, class (a), the Bill requires the filling up, the signing and remittance to their hosts on their arrival of a written statement setting forth their name and nationality. The document must be immediately sent to the police. From the latter, class (b), the Bill requires the obtaining from the police of an identity card granting them leave to abide in the country. Should that card be withheld, the refusal would amount to a consilium abeundi, and an expulsion order, in due form, would be served on the aliens persisting in not understanding the real sense of that tacit invitation voluntarily to quit the country.

So far the provisions of the Bill do nothing new. All nations have always claimed the right to expel undesirable aliens guilty of actual violations of the peace or constructive violations by tending to make others break it. In France the matter is ruled by the law of December 3 to 11, 1849. But whilst under the present legislation any alien whatever is entitled, until he has been served with an expulsion order, to travel freely all over the country, the Bill under consideration confers on the Government full powers, by means of special or general regulations, to withhold leave either to enter the territory or to sojourn in certain areas, towns or places.

The promoters of the Bill argue as follows:

(a) The fact of granting certain classes of aliens full liberty to settle in the precincts or close vicinity of fortified towns, seaports, dockyards, arsenals, public manufactories, or naval and military stores, is apt to encourage the practice of spying and consequently to endanger mobilisation.

(b) Furthermore, the heaping together in the neighbourhood of the frontiers of such aliens as are amenable to the jurisdiction of bordering nations may likewise create insecurity.

(c) And also the return of foreigners belonging to ex-hostile Powers to the localities they have personally taken a part in

devastating or amidst a population they have overawed during the occupation is bound to kindle the old enmity and run the risk, should their attitude be in the least provocative, of giving rise to lamentable incidents. Præstat cautela quam medela.' In view of the revival of normal international relations and the benefit of the foreigners themselves, and as a measure of precaution, it is highly advisable that the Government should be given sufficient powers in case of need to keep those aliens away from the places in which their presence might prove undesirable.

Even in this respect the Bill does not propound anything 'notable, new, and hitherto unsaid.' It accomplishes nothing beyond taking up again various provisions scattered in the legislation of other nations, viz., the Dutch law of August 13, 1849; the Luxemburgian law of December 13, 1893; and the Belgian law of February 12, 1897. While so doing, it most fittingly conciliates the demands of national security by a marked alleviation of the provisions of the French legislation on expulsion, which would only be resorted to as an extreme measure.

Monsieur Paul Escudier, Deputy and former President of the Municipal Council of the city of Paris, drafted, in the name of the Select Committee, a report in which he commended most of the provisions of the Bill. Political events unfortunately prevented the House from passing the Bill at that time, which, however, was brought in again after the elections and favourably reported upon by Monsieur Niveaux, Deputy for the Vienne Department. But this time, again, the powers of the House expired prior to the Bill being passed.

On July 31, 1924, shortly after the last elections, the Chamber of Deputies finally decided to take up, as forming the subjectmatter for all eventual debates, not the first draft, but Monsieur Niveaux's, which at bottom but very slightly differs from the one brought in by Monsieur Escudier in 1919. We have been fortunate enough to interview Monsieur Paul Escudier, to whom for the second time will be entrusted the honour and the delicate task of reporting on the Bill. He proposes to defend before the Select Committee, whose work will consist in drafting the final wording of the new Bill, a text which may be condensed as follows:

As was the case in the first scheme, all the foreigners coming into France are divided into two distinct classes:

(a) Those who are mere passers-by, not wishing to settle in France or to carry on any business, industry or trade there;

(b) Those who, on the contrary, desire to settle in that country for good and all, and who are bound to apply for and obtain an identity card. The Government may, at their discretion and for

such reason as they think fit, withhold that identity card, thus causing an alien to quit the territory prior to an expulsion order having been served on him. The Government, furthermore, retain the right of expulsion which they hold from the law of 1849; but, so as to compel the executive to free the country from all undesirable elements, a provision of the Bill enacts that all aliens convicted of such crimes or misdemeanours as, had they been committed by French subjects, would have caused the same to be pressed into the African battalions of light infantry, shall at the end of their imprisonment immediately be expelled from the territory of the Republic.

A short explanation is here necessary. The French law relating to the recruiting of the Army enacts that special units, called sections d'exclus and bataillons d'infanterie légère d'Afrique, shall be the units to which shall be assigned all recruits who, before being called to the colours, have been convicted of specially odious or grave offences, a complete list of which appears in sections 4 and 5 of the law of March 5, 1905, as amended by sections 1 and 2 of the law of April 11, 1910, sections 1 and 2 of the law of March 30, 1912, and sections 1 and 2 of the law of December 6, 1912.

The criterion is very safe :

It is quite legitimate [writes Monsieur Niveaux] to expel from France such aliens as, had they been natural-born subjects of the country, would at the time of their being called to the colours either have been excluded from the Army or embodied in special units composed of men considered as unworthy of serving in any French or colonial regiments.

Moreover, the Bill provides that, unless and until so authorised by the Government, foreigners shall not be capable of following certain avocations, such as managing director or employee of an agency for the emigration, immigration, transport or transit of alien labourers; managing director of an insurance company, newspaper, etc.

Lastly, a section of the Bill determines on what conditions a company shall be entitled to term itself a French company.'

All these provisions are prompted by equity and the care of national security. None of them is inspired by any hatred of or suspicion against foreigners. The Bill does not even attempt, as might be advocated, to thrust the burden of an extra tax on the shoulders of aliens, though, in truth, they stand in several respects in a favoured position (neither being, inter alia, bound to serve in the Army nor compelled when their stay lasts under a year to pay income tax).

It is therefore to everybody's interest that a strict, minute, effective supervision be forthwith exerted on all immigrants