Another and more indirect cause is the fierce competition which rages among the steamship lines and the different railroads. In 1888 a war of rates broke out among them, so that in that year an emigrant could travel from Liverpool to Chicago for ten dollars, or about two guineas in English money. This low rate offered exceptional facilities to foreign governments, poor-law guardians, and charitable institutions, to rid themselves of the burden of persons unable to support themselves and their families, by simply purchasing for them tickets, and shipping them off to America. The chief offender in this respect appears to have been the British Government; and the Poor Law Guardians in Ireland, who by the Land Act of 1881 were advanced money to assist emigration, especially from the poorer and more thickly populated districts of Ireland. Various charitable societies in Europe and the United Kingdom were no less active. The so-called "Tuke Committee" assisted over 8000 persons to emigrate from Ireland in three years, 1882-85. The Prisoners' Aid Society also assisted convicts to emigrate, while the Central Emigration Society and the Jewish Board of Guardians established in London, have both been active in sending their paupers, and the least desirable portion of the population, to America. Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, and Germany also help to swell this alien invasion--Germany more especially with regard to that most undesirable class of emigrants, liberated criminals and discharged convicts. There exists, for instance, in Munich, a society with several branches, especially formed for the purpose of enabling discharged convicts to begin life over again in some far-off land, and the land almost invariably selected is the United States.