Mr. Storer to Mr. Hay.
Vienna, April 28, 1904.
Sir: I had hoped ere this to be in a position to report fully as to the details of both the new Hungarian emigration law and of the ordinances of the Hungarian minister of the interior putting this statute into effect. But I can not obtain, for another week, the official copies of one of these ordinances, or finish the detailed comparison of the text of the law as now put in force with the text of what was submitted by the former government in 1903, and at that time transmitted by the embassy, which is desirable to have done. I hope within a week to be able to transmit all the above documents, with translations.
I have the honor to report, however, that the promulgation of this law and its administrative enforcement has occasioned no little excitement and newspaper comment in Austria-Hungary.
The law itself was framed, as I reported last year, with the aim of preventing emigration so far as possible, and of regulating what could not be prevented, in such a way as to keep the Hungarian government in touch with those who emigrate.
The language of both the Hungarian and Austrian ministries to me last year was frank and decided. Hungary wishes to keep all her citizens; and there has for years been a constant struggle, both open and acknowledged and unavowed and secret, between the government and the agents of the great steamship companies, who, keen for commissions, foment emigration by every means in their power. When the wish of the Hungarian Government to restrict any emigration which may weaken the national strength is continually combated by individual activity on the part of those who have money to make in swelling the number of emigrants, it follows as a matter of course that a large percentage of those who actually succeed in getting away belong to the class that no government desires, either to keep or to receive. These two opposition forces, each acting on the line of the least resistance, give a compromise result unfavorable to the quality of those who reach America. The commission to the agent is as high for an emigrant whom Hungary is quite willing to let go, and whom the United States would better do without, as on one who would be a loss here and a gain to us.
It is not surprising when the interests of numerous middlemen, as well as of influential great shipping corporations, which receive heavy subsidies from governments other than Hungary, are threatened by a new law, that attacks from all quarters should be made upon it, and for all reasons.
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Then there are strongly worded, though vague, charges of ill-treatment of emigrants from Fiume, on the Cunard Line, with which company the government of Hungary has made a convention giving it a provisional monopoly of carrying emigrants from that port.
The interests of the city of Fiume, of which, as its only seaport, the whole Kingdom of Hungary is naturally proud, and for which it is ready to make great sacrifices, are of course not identical with those [Page 70] of the great shipping lines of Hamburg, Bremen, and Antwerp, or of British lines other than the Cunard.
How much influence this discrepancy of interest may have in this controversy may not be definable, but it unquestionably is very strong. It is quite possible the influence of these commercial rivalries are quite as strong in misrepresentation outside of Austria-Hungary as it is within.
I have already reported the language of the Emperor to me on this subject, last week.
In sending to me the proof sheets of one of the ordinances of the Hungarian minister of the interior above mentioned, the undersecretary of foreign affairs writes as follows:
The reading of these documents will convince your excellency that the Hungarian Government in its desire to regulate emigration is as far as possible from the idea of wishing to favor it.
In these ordinances all administrative and executive officers of the Hungarian Government are ordered to exercise the utmost vigilance in making inquiry into the reasons which induce anyone to emigrate, to do everything in their power to remedy these reasons in any special case, and under all circumstances to try by advice and personal influence to dissuade from emigration. Only in cases where they find the reasons unsurmountable and the emigrant intractable to their good advice, and where there is no legal ground for detaining him in the country, are such officials to allow the person to emigrate, and then under strict official supervision to assure that the interests of the state and the emigrant are alike protected.
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I have, etc.,