Speech #710026542

Mr. President. a good deal has been said about !the quality of the immigration we are getting now and which we will get under the enlarged quotas. A good deal has been said about the fact that various nations are not using the quotas that they get now. For example. I have heard the argument .made many times. "What is the use of enlarging the British quota? They do not use what they have." Upon making some .inquiry as to the facts I have definite information from the State Department which reveals rather a peculiar situation. Every nation in Europe is now and has been in the past using its quota to the last unit in the issuance of visas. but in every nation. due to illness perhaps. to deaths. -to inability to raise passage money. the actual number of arrivals is less than the aggregate number of quota visas that have been issued. That is true of Great Britain. it is true of Germany. and it is true of every other country on the list. so that what is true of Great Britain in this regard is similarly true of Germany. I say again that every one of those countries has exhausted its quota each year to the utmost in the issuance of immigration Visas. It Is only because of the wastage. which averages about Q per cent. that occurs between the issuance of the visa and the actual physical arrival of the immigrant. that It is correct to say that any country does not use its quota. If that is said. it is true of every other country just as it is true of any one. At the present time. the Department of State estimates in a letter to me dated May 3. 1929. that the total number of applicants waiting for British visas was 111.940 on March 15. 1929. which is sufficient to exhaust the British quota for more than three years to come under the 1890 basis and sufficient to exhaust it for nearly two years under the nationalorigins basis.