Official proceedings of the annual meeting: 1928

SIo

THE IMMIGRANT

movement is regulated to a considerable extent by agreement, although there
are not always signed pacts. There are periodical imperial conferences at which
migration, among other questions, is discussed, and efforts are made to find the
best means of "redistributing the white population of the Empire." A series of
agreements has been concluded by Great Britain with Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Southern Rhodesia, the object of which is to organize migration within the Empire with the financial assistance of the governments
concerned.
It will be said that only assisted migration is involved, and that much voluntary emigration takes place which is subject to no official control in the emigration country, namely, Great Britain. No doubt but more and more people
are being brought under these assisted passage and land settlement schemes as
the result of a systematic policy based on agreement between different parts
of the Empire. There may be symptoms of dissatisfaction from labor quarters in Australia; there may be some disappointment in Great Britain that
progress has not been more rapid than it has; but apart from that there is little
objection to what has been done. Great Britain is sending out her sons and
daughters to populate the Empire. The Dominions are receiving a large number of immigrants of British stock, and developing their resources. Shipowners are naturally satisfied as more migrants are carried. Why cannot the world
as a whole put forward a similar effort of organization?
The first International Labor Conference held at Washington in I919 recommended the appointment of an International Emigration Commission which,
"while giving due regard to the sovereign rights of each state, should consider
and report what measures could be adopted to regulate the emigration of
workers and to protect the interests of wage earners residing in countries other
than their own." There is our problem in a nutshell. The words of the Washington Resolution might perhaps be paraphrased as: first, investigation of the
possibilities of employment in different countries, and second, the protection
of the migrant. The methods are essentially research, the preparation of texts
of draft conventions and recommendations for discussion at the annual conference, and cooperation with other bodies in connection with certain aspects of
the question.
The conference has already dealt with a number of questions connected
with migration, namely, the collective recruiting of foreign workers, reciprocity of treatment for foreign workers, communication of statistical and other information to the International Labor Office, equality of treatment of nationals
and aliens in respect of workmen's compensation, and the simplification of the
inspection of emigrants on board ship. There is also an article in the draft
convention concerning unemployment, adopted by the first session of the International Labor Conference at Washington in I9I9, which says that the operations of the various national and public employment exchange systems
should be coordinated by the International Labor Office in agreement with the