The coming of aliens in the future, under the committee's amendment, is to be carefully supervised and properly recorded. That in itself will lead in time to a system of registration of alienspossibly as a part of the naturalization process.

PERMITS TO REENTER THE UNITED STATES.

A counterpart to the certificate plan is the plan (sec. 9) by which an alien in the United States about to depart for a temporary visit abroad, may secure, on payment of $3, a permit to reenter the United States within a stated period. This permit is made necessary because a declarant can not receive a passport from the United States; neither can he receive passport or similar paper from the country to which he formerly owed allegiance. This permit has no effect under the immigration laws except to identify the alien, and to show that he is returning.

ALIEN SEAMEN.

Important provisions relate to the admission of alien seamen. When the Burnett Act (Feb. 5, 1917) was being written, sections 31 and 32 were drafted for the handling of alien seamen. These sections were admitted at the time to be experimental, and for sime time it has been apparent that they were not at all satisfactory; in fact, were the loopholes which permitted many aliens (including the excluded Chinese) to enter and remain in the United States. The medical and physical examinations contemplated have not been successful. A landing card system was provided for sailors, but, owing to its expense and want of appropriation, that system had to be dropped. Masters have failed to detain sailors on board for examination, and some have escaped punishment owing to inability of the Labor Department to "serve notice in writing" in advance, as required by section 32.

New York State complains bitterly of the dumping of diseased and insane sailors within its borders, to be an expense to its asylums and to be deported in many cases at the expense of the State rather than the Nation.

The further necessity for these provisions is shown in hearings (Alien Seamen, Serial 6-c, 1923), and in the report of the Secretary of Labor (1922, p. 101). Also in Appendix II, report of Commissioner General of Immigration, 1922.

RIGHTS OF SEAMEN PROTECTED.

In the amendment offered these provisions are corrected. The rights of alien sailors under the seamen's act are fully protected. They may quit at any port of the United States, even if aliens ineligible to citizenship, but must have identification landing cards (furnished by the shipping companies) and are ashore on a time limit. Bond of any description in any amount may be required, and the Secretary of Labor under these provisions will be able to prevent the Chinese and others from entering the United States by the mere forfeiture of a $500 bond. One United States Shipping Board ship recently turned in $29,000 in $500 bonds forfeited, representing the illegal entry of 58 Chinese. On another ship, where visual physical examination was unexpectedly made, many members of the crew including those waiting on the tables and supplying food to passengers, were found to be suffering from loathsome diseases.

ADMISSIBLE AS QUOTA IMMIGRANTS.

Under the plan of straight quota immigrants (none of exempt classes included) the numbers possible to be admitted are as follows, compared with quota possibilities under the present law:

It must be borne in mind that under the present law certain exempted classes are counted in the quotas, if the quotas are open, and admitted, nevertheless, after quotas are filled. Not a great many have been admitted as exempts in excess of quotas, but a great deal of confusion and uncertainty has resulted, which in the opinion of the committee is unnecessary. In addition, when quotas are nearly closed, persons desiring to immigrate are unable to make sure that they will be included, or whether a quota place expected by them will not be filled by some "exempt."

Further, the decision in the case of Gittel Gottlieb and Israel Gottlieb (United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) has influenced the committee in the preparation of the clauses which admit wives and children of certain exempted classes. Tables showing possible admissions if 1900 or 1910 censuses were used as a base for 2 per cent admissions are presented for the sake of comparison:

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QUOTAS SPREAD OVER YEAR.

Those who think that 2 per cent on the 1900 census might be better than 2 per cent on the 1890 census must remember that all exempt classes" or "nonquota" immigrants are entirely outside of the quota, which is designed entirely as an immigration bonus, or excess, in the most limited degree possible, for use as an escape valve, for the purpose of preventing absolute rigidity. The plan which divides up the issuance of qouta certificates into 10 monthly periods (instead of a limit of 20 per cent per month, as now), leaving two months open for "catch-up" purposes, is provided for the same reason. It must be remembered, however, that the gross number of "quota" immigrants is fixed, and that all computations are based on the number of certificates issued by consular officers. No more can be issued than the limit. Unused ones are not reissued. Certificates are good for six months, and quota immigrants may take ship with the knowledge that there need be no racing of ship against ship in the struggle for the goal within the hour of quota exhaustion.

AGREEMENTS, TREATIES, AND CONVENTIONS.

The measure offered by the House committee will restrict immigration greatly. It will place the regulation of immigration on more nearly a scientific plan than anything heretofore attempted, and it will if continued for but a few years provide the way for the handling of immigration to the United States just as the people of the United States-all aliens now here are included in the magnificent words of the preamable of the Constitution, "We, the people of the United States"-want it to be handled safely, sanely, humanely, with due regard for the right of the family to be considered as a unit, but with particular care for the welfare of the United States, the protection of the interests now and for all time of all of its great population110,000,000-and the generations to follow them. This protection is an inherent right. The State Department will recognize no representations from other countries that interfere or threaten to interfere with that right. Congress will not enact laws which jeopardize in the slightest degree that right. Our treaty-making powers will make no convention or treaty that takes away from this genera

tion or any future generation the right to protect the solidarity, the comfort, the safety of our Nation and those who comprise or may comprise it.

PERSONS WHO MAY NOT BE NATURALIZED.

The Supreme Court of the United States has recently decided that the nationals of oriental countries are not entitled to be naturalized as citizens of the United States under our naturalization laws, which limit naturalization to "free white persons and to aliens of Áfrican nativity and to persons of African descent" (sec. 2129, act of Feb. 18, 1875, amending act of July 14, 1870). (Decided Nov. 13, 1922, 258 U. S.)

Hence the House committee feels fully justified in offering in its measure provisions to correct the so-called "gentlemen's agreement, which is understood to be a mere memorandum, and which was given some strength several years after its promulgation, by the attaching to the commercial treaty with Japan (1911) of the following memorandum:

FEBRUARY 24, 1911.

In proceeding this day to the signature to the treaty of commerce and navigation between Japan and the United States the undersigned, Japanese ambassador in Washington, duly authorized by his Government, has the honor to declare that the Imperial Japanese Government are fully prepared to maintain with equal effectiveness the limitation and control which they have for the past three years exercised in regulation of the emigration of laborers to the United States.

Y. UCHIDA,

GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT GOVERNING IMMIGRATION FROM JAPAN.

To clearly understand the above it is necessary to know something about the original agreement; so the following statement relating to the so-called gentlemen's agreement, or Root-Takahira agreement, is reprinted:

[From the report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1908, p. 125.]

To section 1 of the immigration act, approved February 20, 1907, a provision was attached reading as follows:

"That whenever the President shall be satisfied that passports issued by any foreign Government to its citizens to go to any other country than the United States or to any insular possession of the United States or to the Canal Zone are being used for the purpose of enabling the holders to come to the continental territory of the United States to the detriment of labor conditions therein, the President may refuse to permit certain citizens of the country issuing such passports to enter the continental territory of the United States from such other country or from such insular possessions, or from the Canal Zone."

This legislation was the result of a growing alarm, particularly on the Pacific coast and in States adjacent to Canada and Mexico, that labor conditions would be seriously affected by a continuation of the then existing rate of increase in admissions to this country of Japanese of the laboring classes. The Japanese Government had always maintained a policy opposed to the emigration to continental United States of its subjects belonging to such classes, but it has been found that passports granted by said Government to such subjects entitling them to proceed to Hawaii or to Canada or to Mexico were being used to evade the said policy and gain entry to continental United States. On the basis of the above-quoted provision, the President, on March 14, 1907, issued a proclamation excluding from continental United States "Japanese or Korcan laborers skilled or unskilled, who had received passports to go to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and come therefrom."

Department circular No. 147, dated March 26, 1907, which has been continued in force as rule 21 of the immigration regulations of July 1, 1907, outlined the policy and procedure to be followed by the immigration officials in giving effect to the law and proclamation.

In order that the best results might follow from an enforcement of the regulations, an understanding was reached with Japan that the existing policy of discouraging emigration of its subjects of the laboring classes to continental United States should be continued, and should, by cooperation of the Governments, be made as effective as possible. This understanding contemplates that the Japanese Government shall issue passports to continental United States only to such of its subjects as are nonlaborers, or are laborers who, in coming to the continent, seek to resume a formerly acquired domicile, to join a parent, wife, or children residing there, or to assume active control of an already possessed interest in a farming enterprise in this country, so that the three classes of laborers entitled to receive passports have come to be designated "former residents, "parents, wives, or children of residents," and "settled agriculturists."

With respect to Hawaii, the Japanese Government of its own volition, stated that, experimentally at least, the issuance of passports to members of the laboring classes proceeding thence would be limited to "former residents" and "parents, wives, or children of residents." The said Government has also been exercising a careful supervision over the subject of emigration of its laboring class to foreign contiguous territory.

NOT A TEXT BUT A CORRESPONDENCE.

Statements brought out in House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization hearings on labor problems in Hawaii, 1921 (hearings, 67th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 213-941), shed some light on the preparation of the agreement:

The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of fact, was not this gentleman's agreement built up as the result of exchanges of correspondence between diplomatic officials of the United States and diplomatic officials of Japan?

Mr. MACMURRAY (of State Department). Yes, sir; it is not embodied in a single text, but it appears in the course of some long and argumentative correspondence between our embassy at Tokyo and the Japanese foreign office.

The CHAIRMAN. It was the result of a series of diplomatic exchanges?

Mr. MACMURRAY. Yes, sir.

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The CHAIRMAN. Is the gentleman's agreement a little memorandum laid on top of a pile of letters?

Mr. MACMURRAY. No, sir; it is not a memorandum or document in itself, but the gentleman's agreement is embodied in statements passing back and forth between them in the course of the correspondence.

The CHAIRMAN. We have never had the text of the agreement.

Mr. MACMURRAY. This is the statement of the Commissioner General of Immigration.

The CHAIRMAN. But that is not a State Department publication.

Mr. MACMURRAY. No, sir.

Mr. WILSON. It is more properly a gentleman's understanding than a gentleman's agreement.

DIFFERS AS TO TERRITORY OF HAWAII.

It will be noted from the text above that the "gentlemen's agreement," in so far as it purports to apply to the Territory of Hawaii, is a little different than for the United States.

This brings a new set of vexing problems, too intricate to be discussed here, but always standing in the way of every effort and adding to the difficulties of the construction of permanent immigra tion legislation. Hawaii is a Territory of the United States and not an insular possession.