Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/102

88 may be applied to uses better calculated to lighten the taxation of our citizens.

"Your Committee feel convinced that as a financial measure the subject is important, and that some policy should be adopted of a permanent character. There is every reason to believe that emigration to this port will increase rather than diminish, and that legislation should equally regard the interest of the city and the emigrant. To repose the duty of alleviating the sufferings of the alien stranger to a class of men prompted by every selfish consideration to avoid the responsibility, is to legalize a system of outrage and oppression. The claims of the sick and destitute should be entertained and relieved by the authorities of our city, and not be decided by those interested in denial or delay.

"Your Committee have before them a memorial in favor of the proposed alteration of the law, signed by the acting presidents of the Irish, German, British, Scotch, and Welsh emigrant societies, which states that the change would increase the revenues of the city, and secure the emigrants from the frauds now practised upon them. Resolutions adopted at a large public meeting evince that the subject is one of public interest.

"The sympathies of the adopted citizens have been enlisted especially in this question from the peculiar opportunity they enjoy of becoming familiar with the workings of the present system, and a natural desire which they entertain not only to secure the emigrant from the treatment to which he has been for years exposed, but gradually to establish a fund from commutation adequate to the maintenance of the alien poor.

"For these reasons, a law should be passed, authorizing the Mayor or Recorder to require the payment of a commutation fee of one dollar for each passenger, or bonds at his election. The law might be rendered still more advantageous by requiring that each surety to any bond taken under the act duly make oath at the time of becoming surety that he is a householder, resident in the city of New York, intending to reside there permanently, and worth the sum or sums in which he is bound, over and above all his debts, and over and above all liabilities, whether by bond or suretyship, or otherwise.

"The propriety of reserving to the Corporation the power of