Mr. Hengelmüller to Mr. Hay.

My Dear Mr. Secretary: Referring to our conversation of this morning, I beg to inclose herewith a memorandum with regard to amendment to the Dillingham bill and Hungarian contracts with Cunard Line.

Yours, very truly,

Hengelmüller.
[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, [Page 68] 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.