unfortunate souls are Mexicans, they are simply dumped across our southern border, usually penniless and a long way from home.

For people returned overseas, our government has in the past taken no effective responsibility beyond the three-mile limit. Nor is it probable that its jurisdiction could be projected to the countries of transit over which the immigrant must return to his own country. Steamship companies are, however, made responsibile for their transit. There is great variation in the discharge of this responsibility. There are lines which take the first possible opportunity to "lose" the immigrant. Others regularly provide the machinery to send the immigrant back to the frontiers of his own country. Some steamship companies make decent provision for food and lodging along the way. Obviously, however, few individual adjustments can be made. This human wreckage must be delivered somewhere at least possible expense.

There are countries in which provision for a measure of social care has developed. Rejected immigrants returning from Canada to England are cared for by special immigration commissioners who try to communicate with the relatives in advance and to arrange for the return of each alien to his home. In Hamburg, all those needing care are referred to a social worker, representing the National Emigration Office. Rejected immigrants who reach Czecho-Slovakia are taken to the government immigration barracks where each case receives social consideration.

Requests come not only for service to people in transit from one country to another, but for co-operation in resident cases such as are known to every case worker. Last year an elderly Polish woman injured in a factory in Pennsylvania, dragged herself back to Poland, thinking to find support among her people. She found a povertystricken home, but an inquiry sent to America brought forth the fact that she was entitled to a pension which is now paid to her in Poland.

Our international service has just completed the investigation of relatives' homes in Czecho-Slovakia to which two small half orphans will be returned for care.

In brief such are the services we are rendering. Perhaps it is not so important to decide immediately whether we should designate it by the title of international case work, or whether some title such as international adjustment or information service would be more accurately descriptive. It is of supreme importance, however, what methods we are devising, what habits of work we are acquiring. I am frank to say that our real difficulties lie here.

In the first place, the status of the immigration worker is not yet clearly defined. On the one hand she is accused of being an agent of the government, or a ha of the steamship company, on the other of being a dangerous advocate of the every immigrant. In the United States this anomalous position affects h of being present at hearings under the immigration law, or having access to g records. Is there a solution in the analogy with the position of a social wor courts? Here her function is not partizan but represents the interest of soci whole, and the court can exercise quite rigorous discretion in refusing to adr undesirable social worker.

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Other special difficulties of immigration service are due to the brief contact of cessive workers with each client in transit; the bewilde state of I of the immigrant and his almost abnormal determinatio purpose; the fact that the immigrant in transit is tor few sources of insight on which to base a fair judgme

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tion is often imperative; and information is frequently obtained only by ▸ social workers' program is usually narrowly circumscribed by provisions igration law or other official regulation. The task of the social worker as t of the immigration official is rendered infinitely more difficult by the conttempt to interfere with the impartial enforcement of the law on the part of political influence an interference which has given rise to the conviction rt of our foreign born population that only by enlisting such political influence affairs be properly attended to.

se difficult conditions make careful case work almost impossible, and this very ility tends to develop habits of emergent and superficial work. Careful records re so urgently needed for the study of the problem and the training of ourselves ers in a new field are difficult to secure. A worker who speaks the immigrant's e and knows the ways of his people has the only open sesame to his confidence, › difficulty of finding workers with even a general social training who speak languages and are internationally minded is manifest.

here is at present no satisfactory technical training available for immigration rs. We are self-trained and self-training. Our self-training is, moreover, red immeasuably difficult by the fact that we are a group so scattered over the ›f the globe, yet our objective must be the working out of a common technique pooling of information.

There seems to be an increasing interest in immigrant problems and in their intellihandling on the part of social agencies throughout the country. This is most desir. But if all these scattering local efforts result not in co-operative use of one or two rnational service bureaus, but in the attempt to establish individual international tacts and service the result will defeat its own purpose.

Some degree of national centralization seems essential, for the sake of the developnt of methods of work, in order to prevent endless duplication and complications in dling individual cases, in order to facilitate the compilation of the necessary techal information and in order to secure the most effective relationship to the governent immigration authorities. In several countries of emigration, interesting experients in social care are being developed by the national governments. Canada and gentine have gone much farther than the United States in providing various kinds of cial care through the government or the co-operation of private agencies. Our own overnment now has a permanent advisory committee on the Welfare of Immigrants. is published plans are thus far limited to Ellis Island but conceivably they may be xtended in the future to a national plan which would include provision for the Orientals oming into the Pacific ports and those crossing our land borders.

The Immigration Commission of the International Bureau of Labor has already massed valuable data and offers the hope, not only of becoming an effective clearing house of information, but of giving leadership both to private and government bodies n developing social protection for immigrants.

At present we tend to provincialize our thinking on immigration questions and no problem is less susceptible to narrow understanding. We must enlarge our understanding to fit the scope of the immigrant's experience; we must multiply our resources so that we can meet his need at every point. Our problem is to conserve the accuracy, the flexibility and the sensitive personal relations most often developed by local private effort and yet to find an instrument for the larger service required.

IMMIGRATION AND THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION W. A. Riddell, Director, International Labor Office, Geneva, Switzerland

The International Labor Office is the clearing house for world-information on migration, and it gives promise of affording great assistance in dealing with the international aspects of the problem. Approximately 2,000,000 persons annually leave their homes for the first time to seek their fortunes in other lands, or approximately 5,000,000 if we include those who leave their homes annually for temporary employment in other countries.

An attempt to deal with the migration problem in its international aspects brings us face to face with many and diverse governmental policies. There are governments which promote emigration, such as Poland and Italy. They look on their surplus population as a national asset to be exported temporarily to countries requiring labor under the best possible conditions, whose contacts and sympathies for the native country must be retained in order that their savings may be remitted to the home land.

Some countries restrain their emigration, such as Germany, Norway, and Sweden. For this purpose Sweden maintains under direct subsidy of the state an anti-emigration association, whose business it is not only to further the settlement of Swedes on its hinterland, but also to bring to the attention of all visiting Swedes from abroad the attractions of their native country. Countries like France, which require immigration, seek by treatise with other European countries to obtain their best emigrants. Certain others like Great Britain seek to settle their citizens in their overseas dominions and colonies. There are countries like Belgium and The Netherlands with a small emigration, but whose ports because of their situation are great centers of embarkation for other nationals.

Likewise in the non-European immigration receiving countries you have also considerable variation in immigration policies. Brazil opens her doors to the citizens of all countries, while at the same time actively seeking those who are most likely to succeed in developing her resources. Canada with a policy which aims primarily to attract emigrants from the British Isles and the United States, at the same time admits certain other agricultural groups. Australia and New Zealand have a highly selective policy destined not only to keep their population white, but, as far as possible, Anglo-Saxon. South Africa with its problem complicated by the presence of both white and black labor seeks on the one hand an Anglo-Saxon population for its more skilled work, and coolies from China and India to supplement its colored labor supply, the United States with its 3 per cent law aims not only to limit i those countries which early gave to the United the land. These divergent interests and policies the problem.

When it is considered that the movement of a sin interests and policies into play in at least two and free the international aspect of the problem becomes patent. the country of destination, and

must travel, as well as the shi have been made from time t lem. Bilateral labor treaties

be mentioned that of Poland

ance, and Luxembourg; of Poland, France, and Austria; and of Brazil and Italy. cher treaties between certain European countries have dealt with the equality of eatment for emigrants and national workers, especially as regards social insurance. hese methods of dealing with migration problems, while limited in their scope, have arked a considerable advance in dealing with the problem. Their limitations, howver, are evident and some plan of bringing about a system of protection which would ›rovide minimum guaranties to all emigrants irrespective of the country of origin or destination has, for a considerable time, been the goal of many who have given much thought to the problem.

A brief outline of the International Labor Organization may be valuable in order to make clear the status of the International Immigration Commission. The framers of the Treaty of Versailles placed next in importance to the securing and maintaining of international peace, the securing and maintaining labor and industrial conditions conducive to industrial peace, and so Part 13 established the International Labor Office with its International Labor Conference, Governing Body and Labor Office which corresponds to the secretariat of the League of Nations.

The permanent organization consists of General Conference of representatives of the members' states, the Governing Body and the International Labor Office controlled by a governing body. The General Conference consists of representatives of the fifty-two states belonging to the organization. The only great states still remaining outside are the United States of America and Russia.

The Governing Body consists of twelve persons representing the government, six represent the employers and six represent the workers. Of the twelve persons representing the government, eight are named by the members and four named by members selected for the purpose by the government delegate of the Conference.

All members whether large or small have equal rights in the Conference, each represented by two delegates, one employers' delegate and one workers' delegate. Each delegate votes individually. If they so desire the workers can vote with the workers, and employers with employers of all nationalities. The employers' and workers' delegates are chosen in agreement with the industrial organization. In addition to the delegate technical advisors may be appointed to help on subjects where their expert knowledge would be valuable.

The General Conference meets once every year. Three meetings have already been held: the first at Washington in November, 1919, with which you are more or less familiar, the second at Genoa in 1920 and the third at Geneva which dealt mainly with agricultural questions.

The Governing Body is responsible for the control of the International Labor Office and for the preparation of the agenda of the International Labor Conference, hearing complaints of members and constituting commissions of inquiry.

The Governing Body though exercising this last function in appointing an International Immigration Commission made the first serious attempt of governments to discuss internationally the problems of migration.

The work of the commission was intended to pave the way for the consideration of immigration in the near future by the International Labor Conference. Previous to the meeting of the commission, the International Labor Office through its immigration section had undertaken an extensive survey of the immigration field, and had sent out a questionnaire dealing with, first, general statistical information; second, legisla

tion treaties and the situation in the various countries; and third, the program of work for the commission.

On the replies to these questionnaires and other information furnished by the various governments, two special reports were published, the former dealing with immigration statistics and the latter with legislation concerning emigration and immigration. In addition some ten special reports were drawn up and included the following: Supervision of emigration agents and supply of information to emigrants; collective recruiting in foreign countries; deduction from the wages of emigrants of sums advanced before departure; examination of emigrants before embarkation; health of emigrants on board ship and on the railways; insurance of emigrants during the voyage; finding of employment for emigrants; equality of treatment of emigrant workers and national workers.

In considering the work of the commission it must be borne in mind that the commission was purely advisory and was merely intended to suggest lines of action for the International Labor Conference, and in further consideration of its findings this may be kept in mind.

The findings dealt with statistics, employment of emigrants, equality of treatment of foreign and national workers, state supervision of emigration agents, collective recruiting of workers in foreign countries, deductions from wages on account of advances paid to emigrants, measures concerning the suppression of the traffic in women and children, inspection of emigrants before embarkation, hygiene of emigrants, insurance of emigrants, permanent commission, general and technical education, protection of emigrants, application of laws restricting emigration and immigration.

In the matter of statistics the commission recommended that:

1. Each member shall communicate to the International Labor Office, at intervals as short as possible and not exceeding three months, all available information, legislative, statistical, or otherwise, concerning emigration, immigration, the repatriation and transit of emigrants, including reports on measures taken or contemplated in respect of these questions. Whenever practicable, the information referred to above shall be made available for such communication not later than three months after the end of the period to which it relates.

2. That the director of the International Labor Office be requested to consult the statistical departments of members with a view to proposing the form of a suitable schedule to be submitted to the 1922 Conference.

3. The commission requests the Governing Body of the International Labor Office to take all measures necessary to insure that the Technical Emigration Section, assisted, if necessary, by a few experts, shall investigate the question of International co-ordination of legislation affecting emigration.

In the matter of "employment of emigrants" the commission recommended that 4. Each member should undertake to place at the disposal of emigrants and immigrants the services of its public employment exchange systems in addition to the special services which may exist for the purpose of assisting them in seeking employment.

5. For this purpose it would be desirable that permanent relations should be established between public employment exchanges and the public services of emigration or of immigration or of both, where they exist.

6. Each member should undertake to furnish to the public employment exchanges of other countries which may apply for it all available information necessary for the