This Report was issued in 1889. Little more than two years have elapsed since its publication, and already it must be admitted the danger has greatly increased. It may be asked--Are the difficulties which surround this question likely to become less by waiting for the future? Are they not rather liable to become greater as time goes on, and the evils lamented by the Committee assume more formidable aspects? To admit the existence of an evil, to deplore its effects, and yet to shrink from proposing any remedy because there are difficulties in the way, is a very lame and impotent conclusion. Such a proceeding may or may not agree with the political exigencies of the moment, may or may not be desirable from a party point of view; but it shows a deplorable lack of the courage of conviction, and of the higher order of statesmanship. A problem which other nations under similar circumstances have successfully solved, is surely not one from which English statesmen should shrink, because of the difficulties besetting its solution. Let us analyse these difficulties. One, we are frequently told, is the short sea passage between the Continent and England, which would render it practically impossible for us to adopt a similar plan to that already existing in other countries. But if at Hamburg they can effectually prevent the landing of destitute persons from England, surely in England we can prevent the landing of destitute persons from Hamburg--the port from which the great bulk of these objectionable aliens generally come? The difficulty in the one case is no greater than the difficulty in the other. That objection is easily disposed of. But the other impediment--the lack of trustworthy statistics--is more serious, since without statistics there can be no legislation. I have already alluded to the Board of Trade Returns, and have endeavoured to show how utterly worthless they are for all practical purposes. The same dearth of information was the great stumbling-block in the way of the House of Commons' Committee. To that, its chairman, Sir William Marriot, has testified.[36] "The difficulty was," he said, "that there was no means of getting correct information; and it was a most extraordinary thing, that, though we had some witnesses from the Board of Trade, they were utterly unaware of certain Acts of Parliament which ought to be carried out by them, namely, the Act of William IV.; and we discovered that, although the people were calling for fresh legislation, there was a law existing by which we could get information at every port in England." Such was the state of affairs then. It is not much better now. Returns are not taken from every port in England; important ones--Southampton for instance--being still omitted; those from three of the most important ports are only partial; and from all they are loosely prepared, only checked "now and then," and the penalties for violation of the Act are never enforced. How can such