File No. 7167/10-13. No. 208.] Chargé Bliss to the Secretary of State. [Extracts.] AMERICAN LEGATION, Brussels, August 10, 1907. SIR: Referring to Mr. Wilson's Nos. 183 and 197, of June 4 and July 8, respectively, I have the honor to report the present status of the question arising from Great Britain's proposal to withdraw from the Brussels sugar convention of 1902. As the department is already aware, the British Government has signified its willingness to continue its adherence to the convention in the event that a means may be found to release it from the obligation of applying the penalties which the convention imposes on bounty sugar. Following an exchange of views between the Governments of Great Britain and of Belgium, it was agreed by the contracting parties that an effort should be made to meet the proposition of Great Britain, and to this end it was decided to hold a meeting of the permanent sugar commission in which the question was to be examined. In the meetings of the commission, held at Brussels on July 25, 26, and 27, the proposition of Great Britain was studied and considered at length. From a reliable source I learn that the delegates generally showed a marked disposition to arrive at a means of retaining the adhesion of Great Britain. The result of the deliberations of this meeting has been the drawing up of an additional act to the convention to be submitted for ratification by the several contracting parties. I have, etc., File No. 7167/16. No. 216.] Chargé Bliss to the Secretary of State. ROBERT BLISS. AMERICAN LEGATION, Brussels, August 29, 1907. SIR: Referring to this legation's Nos. 183, 197, and 203, of June 4, July 8, and August 10, respectively, I have the honor to report that the additional act, drawn up at the recent meeting of the permanent commission of the sugar convention, was signed yesterday on behalf of the adhering Powers by their diplomatic representatives accredited to Belgium. I have, etc., ROBERT BLISS. EMIGRATION AGENTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, LOUISIANA, AND VIRGINIA IN EUROPE. File No. 907/31-32. No. 175.] Minister Wilson to the Secretary of State. AMERICAN LEGATION, SIR: As supplementary to my No. 167," of April 7, I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy and translation of a note just a Not printed. received from the Belgian minister for foreign affairs in which his excellency, adverting to the law on immigration passed by the last Congress, asks for definite information as to its character and scope. His excellency the minister-as will be noted-desires to be authoritatively informed at as early a date as possible both as to the character of the law and the interpretation placed upon it by the Department of Justice. Not having been furnished with any copies of the law nor with instructions of the department relative to its application, I have not been able to supply the information requested, and I deem it expedient as suggested in my No. 167, above referred to-to have some expression of the department's views. I would also suggest that copies of the laws now in force be sent hither. Mr. MINISTER: Your excellency kindly advised me on September 15, 1906, of the desire expressed by the Department of State at Washington to see the Government of the King facilitate the mission confided to Mr. E. J. Watson, chief of the bureau of immigration of South Carolina, with the object of securing for the said state a certain number of Belgian weavers and agriculturists. The steps taken in our country by Mr. Watson established the fact that the larger part of the laborers disposed to go to South Carolina and seeming to have the necessary qualities to succeed there did not possess sufficient resources to pay the price of the passage for themselves and their families. Consequently he requested from my department the authorization to advance to the families finding themselves in this condition the total or partial sum of the price of passage. The advances thus made were to be reimbursed by those interested in the course of the first six months or first year after their arrival in the United States. Under date of October 4 last your excellency kindly transmitted to me a letter from Mr. Watson indicating the guaranties which he was disposed to give to the Government of the King if he were permitted to engage Belgian laborers. My department authorized him, under those conditions, to make contracts, and since then several groups of Flemish weavers and agriculturists have been embarked for Charleston. As your excellency is doubtless aware, the question has been raised in the United States to determine whether the conditions under which the State of South Carolina had brought over foreign laborers were not contrary to the provisions of the law of 1903 on immigration. Mr. Earle, legal adviser of the Department of Commerce and Labor, has rendered the opinion that there has not been in this instance a violation of the legal provisions in force. The new federal law, passed the 20th of February last, and which will go into effect the 1st of July next, prohibits, in a more precise manner than in the old law, the admission into the United States of persons whose passage may have been paid by individuals or by a group of individuals. Moreover, my attention has been called to the opinion which the AttorneyGeneral of the United States has just addressed to the governor of South Carolina. The honorable Mr. Bonaparte specially points out that the inducement of emigration by offers, promises, etc., although contrary to the bill of 1903, was not a cause for expulsion. According to article 2 of the new law the immigrant arriving under these conditions will not be allowed to enter the country. In view of this same article, the different States of the Union will be allowed to continue to pay the passage of the immigrant, but the fact of societies, corporations, or associations contributing to this immigration fund, as appears to have been the case in Mr. Watson's mission, will constitute a cause for expulsion. My department, by reason of the obligation incumbent upon it to protect Belgian emigrants, must guard as far as possible that those who desire to go to the United States should not be denied the privilege of disembarking upon their arrival. The authorization formerly accorded to Mr. Watson to engage Belgian workmen can not, therefore, be continued unless my department has every guarantee as to the reception which will be accorded them. I think that I can not do better under these circumstances than to have recourse to the obliging intermediary of your excellency in ascertaining if the conditions, under which the recruiting of laborers secured for South Carolina has been effected until the present time, can be continued without inconvenience, or what would be eventually the modifications necessary to make these conditions conform with the provisions of the new law. The solution of this question presents a certain urgency since, according to information received at my department, Mr. Watson will shortly return to Belgium with the object of again engaging agricultural and industrial laborers. I take this occasion, etc., FAVEREAU. File No. 907/31-32. No. 110.] The Secretary of State to Minister Wilson. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Nos. 167 and 175, dated respectively April 7 and May 7 last, and to inform you that the question of the employment of state agents to induce immigration from Europe is receiving the consideration of the Department of Commerce and Labor, and that when a conclusion is reached in the matter you will be informed thereof. I am, etc., File No. 8195/4-5. No. 461.] E. ROOT. The Acting Secretary of State to the Belgian Chargé. a DEPARTMENT OF STATE. Washington, October 12, 1907. SIR: The department duly received your note of August 22 last, inquiring whether or not certain inducements being offered in Belgium by Mr. Charles Schuler, immigration agent of the State of Louisiana, are contrary to the spirit and intent of the immigration laws of the United States. A reply to your note has been withheld awaiting an opinion from the Attorney-General on a pertinent case, pending at New Orleans, of an emigrant applying for admission in pursuance of a contract of the character described in the pamphlets which you inclosed. I have now the honor to inclose herewith a copy of the opinion rendered in the case by the Attorney-General, by which you will see that for reasons stated therein the alien was held to be not entitled to admission into the United States. ALVEY A. ADEE. Accept, etc., a Not printed. [Inclosure.] 51591/3. The Secretary of Commerce and Labor to the Secretary of State. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE AND LABOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, SIR: Referring to your letter of August 28a last (No. 8195/2), the receipt of which was acknowledged by this department on August 31, I have the honor to inclose herewith a copy of an opinion handed down on September 30 by the Attorney-General in the case of the alien, Geronimo Garcia, which was brought by the Louisiana state board of agriculture and immigration with the object of testing the provisions of the immigration act of February 20, 1907, relating to the importation of alien laborers by States and Territories. This opinion seems to furnish a reply to the inquiry of the chargé d'affaires ad interim of Belgium with regard to whether certain inducements being offered in Belgium by Mr. Charles Schuler, immigration agent of the State of Louisiana, are contrary to the spirit and intent of the immigration laws of this country. I have, etc., OSCAR S. STRAUS. [Subinclosure.] The Attorney-General to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, September 30, 1907. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 26th instant in reference to the appeal of Geronimo Garcia, who has been excluded from the United States by a decision of the board of special inquiry at the port of New Orleans, in a test case brought by the Louisiana state board of agriculture and immigration, in which you recite the facts brought out by the testimony and request an expression of my opinion as to whether the admission of an alien to the United States under the circumstances thus recited would be in violation of the immigration act of February 20, 1907. The facts as stated by you are as follows: Geronimo Garcia arrived at the port of New Orleans from Cuba on August 5, 1907. His passage was paid by Mr. Reginald Dykers, who at the time was the regularly authorized agent of the Louisiana state board of agriculture and immigration, out of funds appropriated in regular manner by the state legislature. Mr. Dykers and a Mr. L. H. Allen, the latter also being a representative of the said board, approached the alien in Habana and solicited him to immigrate to the State of Louisiana, assuring him that employment as a farm laborer would be secured for him on his arrival in said State. In exchange for the passage money the alien gave to the said officials a receipt, in which he promised to return to the Louisiana state board of agriculture and immigration with a year the sum so advanced. It is the expectation of the state agent that in such cases, upon the alien's securing employment, his employer will loan him the amount necessary to reimburse that State and deduct the same from his wages; but no method has been provided whereby an employer can be compelled to make such loan, it being the intention of the state board to rely upon the moral obligation of the alien's promise to reimburse the State and not upon any legal measures against him or his employer. The alien is left free to select such employer as he pleases, although the expectation of the agent is that aliens selected by him under this plan will be of such a reliable class that they will usually seek employment from parties who can be depended upon to advance to the alien the amount of the passage and enable him to therewith reimburse the state fund. It also appears that, while the alien Garcia had seen advertisements published abroad by the Louisiana state board of agriculture and immigration, reciting the inducements the State of Louisiana offers for immigration thereto, he was not induced to come to the United States solely by reason of such inducements; nor was the sole inducement the fact that his a Not printed. passage was paid by another, nor the fact, brought out in the testimony, that his father had previously come to this country. These facts operated to some extent, however, to lead him to endeavor to avail himself of the assurances given by the above-named agents that employment as a farm laborer would be secured for him on his landing in Louisiana. Although the desire of the state agent is that Garcia, if landed, shall enter the employ of an individual planter who would be willing to loan him the cost of his passage and gradually deduct it from his wages, thus enabling said alien to immediately reimburse the state fund, he is, as above stated, left free to accept other employment if he so desires; and there is no evidence that shows positively that the said Garcia (or any other alien imported in accordance with the plan) might not, after landing, be employed by a corporation, association, or society, as freely and in the same manner as by an individual; suggesting a possibility that, under the indirect method of attempting to eventually secure reimbursement to the state fund of the amount of the alien's passage, a condition could arise which might, perhaps, be regarded as being, remotely but yet in effect, a payment of such passage by a corporation, society, or association. Upon these facts I am of the opinion that Garcia is not entitled to admission into the United States. 66 1. It appears from this statement that representatives of the Louisiana state board approached Garcia in Habana and solicited him to immigrate to Louisiana, assuring him that employment as a farm laborer would be secured for him on his arrival, and that such assurances operated as a material, if not the principal, inducement to his immigration, since neither the advertisements published by the State, nor the payment of his passage, nor his father's previous coming, was the sole inducement to his coming, but these matters operated to some extent to lead him to endeavor to avail himself of the assurances of employment given him by the representatives of the state board. Among the classes of aliens excluded by section 2 of the act of 1907 (34 Stat., 898) are persons hereinafter called contract laborers, who have been induced or solicited to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment, or in consequence of agreements, oral, written, or printed, expressed or implied, to perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled." This provision, as stated in my opinion, rendered the President on March 20, 1907, excludes "aliens solicited or induced to immigrate by reason of offers or promises, even when there is no contract of employment." (26 Opin., 199, 207.) The assurances given to Garcia by the state agents constitute, in my opinion, promises of employment within the inhibition of the statute. While it is provided that aliens coming to this conutry in consequence of advertisements by a State of its inducements to immigration shall not be treated as coming under a promise of employment (sec. 6), there is no exception in favor of a State in reference to specific promises of employment to individual immigrants, such as were held out to Garcia by the representatives of the state board. Neither is there any requirement in the act that the promises of employment, in order to work exclusion, must be the sole inducement to the immigration. Therefore, since, as stated in my opinion rendered the President on March 6, 1907, the unquestionable right of Congress to regulate the admission of aliens into the United States clearly controls the action of any state agent in this respect (26 Opin., 180, 193), it follows that on account of the assurances of employment that were given to Garcia as an inducement to his immigration, he should be excluded from admission. 2. Furthermore, as his passage was paid out of state funds, unless it was also clearly shown that he did not belong to any of the classes, such as paupers, etc., specifically excluded by the act, he comes within the provision of section 2 of the act (34 Stat., 898) excluding any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of another or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown that such person does not belong to one of the foregoing excluded classes, and that said ticket or passage was not paid for by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign government, either directly or indirectly." Under this provision, while the payment of an immigrant's passage out of state funds does not of itself require his exclusion, yet such payment by a State, just as by an individual, operates to throw upon the immigrant the burden of clearly showing that he does not come within any of the otherwise excluded classes, and, in case of his failure to so show, he is not entitled to admission. 3. In reference to your suggestion that under the indirect method of attempting to eventually secure reimbursement to the state fund of the amount of the |