[Inclosure.]
memorandum.
An amendment has been proposed in the Senate to the Dillingham
immigration bill, which provides that no immigrants shall be allowed
to land in the United States whose emigration has been encouraged or
induced by the agreement of any government, directly or indirectly,
with any transportation company.
In so far as this amendment has been caused by or is directed against
an agreement recently concluded by the Hungarian government with the
Cunard Steamship Company, I beg to point out that it is based upon
an erroneous impression derived from one of the clauses of said
agreement.
By article 24 of the agreement the Hungarian government guarantee to
the Cunard Company the transportation of 30,000 passengers yearly,
and undertake to make good the difference between that and the
actual number at the rate of 100 crowns a head.
It seems that this clause has produced an impression as if the
Hungarian government meant to induce 30,000 of their people yearly
to emigrate, or that at least having incurred a pecuniary obligation
in case emigration should fall under that number they would find it
their policy or their interest to encourage emigration up to that
amount.
The Hungarian government deplore and discourage emigration, and
nothing is further from their intention than to encourage it. I do
not think it necessary to expatiate upon this matter, as the true
position of the government, press, and people in Hungary, as well as
in Austria, with regard to the emigration problem,
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is well known to the federal government.
American consular reports from Austria-Hungary, which have been
lately published, bear testimony to the fact that emigration is
regarded in my country as a serious, economical, and political
menace, and as such deplored. Debates in parliaments and articles in
the press have made this fact patent to any follower of public
affairs in my country.
But emigration exists in Hungary, and as the government found
themselves unable to prevent it they undertook to regulate or at
least, in some measure, to control it. An emigration act was passed
at the beginning of last year at Budapest, the object and the
details of which I may suppose to be known to the State
Department.
It seems a natural and a legitimate wish of the Hungarian Government
that if their citizens could not be kept at home they should at
least sail from one of their own ports. Up till now our emigrants
had to come to the United States through Germany, Belgium, or
Holland. By establishing a direct line from Fiume to New York the
Hungarian Government intended to confer a benefit on their people
and at the same time get a better control over the whole emigration.
These considerations led to the agreement with the Cunard Line.
An English company establishing a direct line between two foreign
ports desired some guaranty against possible loss. This desire was
met by clause 24 of the agreement. In mentioning a given number of
emigrants as the basis of the guaranty the Hungarian Government had
not their wishes for the future but actual facts, as developed
during latter years, in view.
So far are my Government from wishing to encourage emigration that
Count Tisza has but last Thursday declared in Parliament that he
would gladly hail the day when he will be called upon to pay the
guaranty.
I venture to add that in so far as the proposed amendment aims at
barring immigrants from landing, not because they are undesirable
immigrants per se, but because of the Hungarian Government’s
contract with the Cunard Line, its passing would not lessen the tide
of immigration, but simply transship it to other transportation
companies.
Washington, April 17, 1904.
