(By Our Johannesburg Correspondent)
The effort to keep out Jewish immigrants, which in America has become a movement against non-Nordics, has assumed here in South Africa the form of a movement against “Lithuanian” immigration.
The agitation in the South African Press in September last against Jewish immigration led by “The Star” and “De Burger” and followed by the dailies of other South African centres, has made another appearance in the columns of the “Star” and “De Burger.” “De Burger” fears that “in the long run the people of South Africa will consist of Lithuanian Afrikanders” and urges “that the matter is so serious as to be above party.” This important Government organ indulges in a gratuitous dig at the Jews, when it states: “Where the surplus of traders is a problem attracting more and more attention it is surely very foolish to admit more and more people, who have no other calling (and who in many cases do not enhance the reputation of their calling).” “The Star,” in support of “De Burger,” remarks that “to say the least, these newcomers are economically undesirable.”
The argument is that according to figures for October, more British citizens left the Union for good than settled here, the net loss being 56; whilst the excess of arrivals of non-British Europeans assuming domicile over those relinquishing domicile was 152, of whom 107 came from Eastern and Southern Europe, and of the latter, “Lithuanians numbered no less than 55.”
A writer in the Johannesburg “Zionist Record,” Percy Cowen, demonstrates that this argument is based on a perversion of facts.
The vast majority of Lithuanian immigrants to this country, he points out, become naturalized British subjects after they have stayed here for the necessary qualifying period. They are, therefore, no more classed as Lithuanian but as British subjects, and their future movements, including their departure from this country, are henceforth described as those of British subjects!
Many Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, Latvia and Poland apply for letters of naturalization as soon as possible with the definite intention of leaving the country as soon as they become British subjects, that they may be able to travel with the protection of a British passport and rank as a British subject.
It is, therefore, only right to assume that a large number of those who arrive in this country as Lithuanians leave it as British subjects, and that that number should be deducted from the figure of British permanent departures from this country. That can only be done by giving the number of Lithuanian permanent arrivals who eventually become British subjects, which the present figures do not give. In addition, the figures given of Lithuanian immigrants assuming domicile include a large number of women and children coming out to join their husbands and fathers Fourteen per cent of the total immigrants were children under fifteen years of age.
As regards the charge that the “Lithuanian” emigrants are “poverty-stricken” and “undesirable,” it has been established that practically all the Jewish male immigrants arriving in this country from Eastern Europe or elsewhere to take up permanent residence here are in possession of affidavits signed by business firms and other employers in this country, undertaking to give the immigrant employment in their business at a definite salary, which is mentioned therein. There can thus be no question of these immigrants becoming a burden on the State and therefore they cannot be classed as “poverty-stricken” or “economically undesirable.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
