(By Our Paris Correspondent, J. Shechtman)
That France’s only hope of salvaging her national existence lies in immigration and that, in fact, the country needs and can easily absorb at least 700,000 additional immigrants, is the statement made here by Professor Roger Picar, noted French scholar and member of the Executive Committee of the League of Human Rights.
This conclusion, which will prove of no small interest to the Jews whose migration problem at present is so acute, was arrived at by Prof. Picar on the basis of an extensive investigation, the results of which he has now made public.
In 1911, according to Prof. Picar, France’s population consisted of 36, 605,000. After the war the country (not including Alsace-Lorraine) had 37,500,000. In absolute figures (not considering natural increase) France lost in the war more than 2,000,000 persons. Including Alsace-Lorraine the loss totalled 2,400,000. France cannot get along without these almost 2,500,000 individuals, for economic as well as military and political reasons. This is generally admitted. But who is to replace these 2,500,000 hands that toiled and produced before the war?
Prof. Picar contends it is the immigrants. He does not polemyze with the chauvinists who fulminate against aliens. He produces figures, which show that: In 1911 there were 1,330,000 foreigners in France, while in 1925 there were 2,845,000, an increase of only 1,700,000. In order to cover the war losses France needs 2,400,000 persons, and, without figuring those that have already arrived, she must have at least 700,000 new immigrants. Without these 700,000 the country is short in hands for its factories, mines and farms. In this way, it appears, Prof. Picar says, that France is doing the immigrants no favor in admitting them, but on the contrary, the immigrants are enriching the country and helping it to regain its economic stability.
Prof. Picar explains that the 2,845,000 immigrants who are now in France, more or less permanently, and who constitute 9% of the total population, consist chiefly of the following: Italians, 807,659; Spaniards, 647,156; Belgians, 460,352; Poles, 310,265; and other smaller groups.
It is predicted that Prof. Picar’s observations will have practical results, owing to this scholar’s reputation as an authority and also because of the prestige which the League of Human Rights of which he is a leader, enjoys in the eyes of the French government and the public in general. At the congress of the League on October 31, Prof. Picar will present his ideas on the subject of immigration and it is hoped that the Congress will endorse his views. If that happens the League will inaugurate a vigorous campaign in favor of encouraging a larger influx of immigration into France. The Jews of course will watch these developments with considerable interest.
SUBHEADBREVITIES
Baron Maurice de Rothschild was elected Deputy in the French Chamber for the Hautes-Alpes Department by the majority of 10,540 votes, against 3,149 for the Socialist Inghels and 3,145 for the Radical Forgeot.
This is the second time that Baron Rothschild won at the polls, but after his first election the Chamber refused to validate it on the charge that votes had been purchased.
The funeral of Isaac Frank, sixty-two, former police Captain and later an Alderman for two terms from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, who died Saturday in the Lexington Hospital was held yesterday.
Results of an investigation made by the Indiana Republican Editorial Association of the political control alleged by D. C. Stephenson, former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, to have been exercised over the Republican party in that state were submitted to a group of state senators.
The senators drafted a statement in which they declared that they were “astounded at the revelations of Chairman Adams” and declared “the evidence should receive legislative investigations.”
Secrets and intrigues, bribery and corruption, the several years’ iron-handed government by the Ku Klux Klan under D. C. Stephenson, the former Grand Dragon, promised to be laid bare within the next few days, a despatch from Indianapolis to the “New York Times” stated.
The special investigating committee of the Indiana Republican Editorial Association, headed by Thomas H. Adams, Vincennes publisher, held a mass of evidence, which Adams stated “will rock the State and the nation.”
What probably is the first offer of music scholarships by a department store is the donation of two scholarships, one for younger students and one for advanced, by L. Bamberger & Co., of Newark.
According to the announcement by Spaulding Frazer, chairman of the executive committee of the Newark Festival Association and of the Bamberger Scholarships Committee, the firm has established a four-year scholarship at the Institute of Musical Art in New York for advanced piano students and a junior scholarship for a similar term calling for instruction at a New Jersey institution or by some carefully chosen private teacher. Persons employed by the donors are not eligible for the scholarships.
The scholarships will be open to students of both sexes between the ages of ten and twenty-five who are residents of New Jersey in the counties of Essex, Morris, Passaic, Bergen, Hudson, Union, Somerset, Middlesex and Monmouth.
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.
