CONNERY. coming from the county where I come from and interested in 15eople who make their living by the sea. would not want to see a discrimination made against them. In section 7 of this bill there is a provision that seems to me to involve a rank discrimination against American vessels. and I am thinking of those fishermen who sail from the Massachusetts coast and who fish on the Nova Scotian coast. This section provides that no American vessel shall be allowed to enter an American port which has as a part of its crew any alien who. if he were applying for admission to the United States as an immigrant. would be excluded. That does not mean only aliens of a banned race or aliens subject to banned diseases among immigrants. to whom the gentleman from Texas referred. But if a fishing vessel from Gloucester went to Nova Scotia and shipped a man who cannot read or write in order to replace men lost in some disaster. the ship could not come back to its harbor in America. The Gloucester captain might lose his whole fare. the fruits of weeks of labor. because he had not conducted a literacy test when taking on a new member of his crew. On the other hand. there is a provision that any foreign vessel having such an illiterate alien not of a banned race shall be allowed to enter and may freely bring any such alien with him. It seems to me that this is a clear discrimination against the American vessel and in favor of the Canadian or European vessel.
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immigrant literacy test immigrants