For the time being we fail to bring to mind the name of that author who drew a striking picture of streams of emigrants proceeding in two different directions across America. It seems somewhat like Stevenson, but at any rate the case was that' some emigrants were making for the west in the hope of obtaining employment, while an equal number were returning to the cast there to swell the ranks of the out-of-works. We have no doubt that the same sort of thing is possible to-day, and when one thinks of the shattered hopes, the hardship and bitterness which these people have to experience, it must evident that for the International Emigration Commission now appointed there is a crying need. It is to meet next year, and in the meantime it is collecting a body of information which should enable it to offer a tangible piece of good to the world. We do not know how wide is the scope which the Commission is to be given, whether. for instance it can consider that very vexed and very delicate question of the Japanese in California, but unless its functions are definitely limited, we should imagine that it could consider such a case. And if so, a gathering of its nature would surely be able to evolve a formula which would help to settle a disturbing problem on Pacific shores, or the mass of information it "will have at hand might succeed in effecting a solution on entirely new grounds. But even if the Commission is to be limited in its scope so that this subject cannot be touched, its power for useful work is bound to be enormous.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.