It has been said that "A great city is a great evil." But paradoxical as it may seem, it is also a great good, since it provides employment for many thousands who otherwise would starve. Still it cannot be denied that the abnormal increase of our great cities, and the gradual depopulation of our country districts, form one of the most serious social problems of our time. There is a constant movement going on from the country to the town. This is due to many causes, one of which is undoubtedly the introduction of machinery, which, whilst lessening the work for labourers in the agricultural districts, at the same time creates an extraordinary demand for "hands" in our manufacturing centres. Another cause is the higher rate of wages, and the bustling customs of the town, which never cease to offer attractions to young people starting in life. The result of this steady current of human beings flowing away from the country to the town is disastrous to both. Every great city in England is rapidly approaching a state of congestion; and in rural places there is a great dearth of workers, the supply falling very far short of the demand. If the 30,000,000 human beings in England and Wales all had food and lodging, there would be no cause for anxiety; but a large number of them are very poor, and wholly unable to support themselves. In 1890 no less than 671,000 persons received Poor Law relief, of whom 462,000 were relieved outside, and 179,000 inside the workhouse. In London alone 5000 able-bodied men were relieved every day, at a cost to the Metropolitan rate-payers of £188,000 per year. Twenty-four out of every hundred, or nearly one quarter of those who died in London last year, died either in the workhouses, hospitals, or lunatic asylums. Therefore, considering this question of foreign immigration generally, and foreign Jewish immigration in particular, we must take into account the nature of its distribution and the gregarious habits of the Jewish immigrants. The weekly arrival of hundreds of semi-starving foreigners must of necessity have a serious effect upon our unskilled labour market in London and our great provincial cities, to which the immigrant aliens principally flock. All thinking persons will admit that it is of more importance to protect our own workmen than to preserve our traditional character for hospitality, if it can be shown--and I consider it can--that the exercise of such hospitality tends to degrade the social condition of the native workers. Why then add to the difficulties of this problem by letting in yearly thousands of these foreigners, chiefly the "lowest class of the lowest class," who, parasites that they are, flock at once to our great centres of population, and prey upon our people, underselling their labour, and taking the bread from their mouths?