But the sliding scale plan contemplates no such radical
step. Indeed it is radical in no sense whatever. The proposed immigration
act now before Congress (The Burnett Bill, H.R. 6060) paves the way for
it, and provides a working principle, which apparently is accepted on all
sides. Section 3 includes this clause: "That skilled labor, if otherwise
admissible, may be imported if labor of like kind unemployed can not be
found in this country, and the question of the necessity of importing such
skilled labor in any particular instance may be determined by the
Secretary of Labor...." A really workable test for immigration, superior
by far to the literacy test or any other so far suggested, might easily be
developed by simply enlarging the scope of this clause, making it include
unskilled as well as skilled labor. No machinery other than that
contemplated by the present act would be required.
The immigration problem can never be satisfactorily handled until we fix
upon some such means of determining just what the economic need is. There
is no danger of hindering legitimate industrial expansion in times of
sudden business prosperity: for the transportation companies may be safely
trusted to supply in three or four weeks aliens enough to fill all the
gaps in the industrial army.
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