Search

The White Paper on Palestine, issued by the British Government in May 1939, adumbrated future British policy in Palestine at a time when all members of the Cabinet, including Chamberlain, had accepted the inevitability of war. Yet, while they were concerting measures for war on a global scale, the Middle Eastern theatre was of low military priority, and appeasement remained the order of the day, with the White Paper as its principal instrument. The White Paper severely restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine for the next five years and amde further, subsequent immigration dependent upon Arab consent. Britain also promised to set up an independent Palestinian State within the next ten years, if this should prove feasible.

In preparing this discussion I chose not to use the four papers as a basis for reflections upon the state of the discipline, although that would probably have been more appropriate to the theme of the annual meeting. Rather I chose to restrict my comments to the specific economic and historical issues raised in the abstracts. I should note that in each case I benefited by having made available to me more material than the summaries published in this issue of the Tasks. All four papers can loosely be described as dealing with demographic themes. They can be further paired into two groups. The papers by Professors Hill and Uselding being concerned with the effects of immigration into the United States in the nineteenth-century, while those of de Vries and Mendels examine economic growth and population change in the Low Countries in the period before the Industrial Revolution. I shall no doubt spend more time commenting upon the first pair, if only because I am more familiar with the problems and the material, and I must fit their work into an accumulation of lecture notes on the subject.

Women in western society have played out their historical roles primarily within the confmes of the family, and it is therefore not surprising that two papers on working women both focus extensively on family relationships. Each in its own way raises questions about the internal dynamics that encourage women to seek out certain kinds of occupations and exclude them from others. While the family is in some ways an autonomous institution, structured by its own psychology, it also reflects the dominant values of the society as they are translated into particular classes in the face of changing economic conditions. When objective conditions challenge old values, the tensions that emerge are directly reflected in the lives of women, as workers and as wives and mothers. Internal family dynamics and the family's relationship to the labor force are both necessary guides to understanding the way women participate in the historical process. The former provides the unique data about specific families that, together with our knowledge of economic and social conditions and ideas, enables us to understand the process of historical change. These essays provide much important informa­ tion about internal family structure, but in different ways both abstract the family from the larger social context. They are both, in that sense, limited. Toward the end of her essay, Leonore Davidoff comments of servants and wives: "They had no role to play in the great drama of market forces." That statement makes explicit an assumption that underlies the essay and which is present as well in Virginia Yans-McLaughlin's discussion of Italian immigrant families. The assumption that women are in some sense by-products of their culture, that they are not actors, but victims of a set of institutions and of the values that support them is one which distorts our understanding of the historical process and particularly of women's role in it. Women are part of

Mr Lundgren said that he had learned a lot from the papers. The most widely used international trade models assumed that factors of production were im- mobile. In fact, they were mobile enough to make the use of such theories dangerous. The theory of international labour migration had received very little attention. He could see two ways of approaching the problem. First, one could work out a theory of international exchange with limited labour mobility, and full mobility of capital. Or one might look at data, and test hypotheses as to why labour moved. The two papers both took the latter route. Professor Scott also discussed the effect of labour migration on income per head and capital formation. Perhaps income per head would be reduced a little in the receiving country; the contribution to capital formation in that country by immigrants was not great. They mainly brought human capital.

Oliver Lyttelton, the British Colonial Secretary, has announced his government's support of plans to federate the three British central African territories (Closer Association in Central Africa Cmd. 8411, HMSO Nov 21, 1951). The Conservatives, when they were in opposition, endorsed Labour's moves to bring Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland into some form of closer association. Last March, officials from the three territories, from the Commonwealth Relations Office and from the Colonial Office, along with expert advisers, met in London to draft some proposals for closer association. They came out in favour of federation; the scheme was made public in the White Paper of June: Central African Territories: Report of Conference on Closer Association (Cmd. 8233). Though none of the four governments have been bound by these proposals, most discussion is taking place around their merits and faults; in July, another conference, which may be decisive, will be held in London. The case for closer association is simple, and to some, quite compelling. It is the threat of Dr. Malan's "Afrikanerdom." Since the war Southern Rhodesia's white population has doubled ; many of the immigrants are Afrikaners from the Union of South Africa. They have already formed their own exclusive political party: the Democratic Party. And it is estimated that in Northern Rhodesia, if the present rate of immigration continues, the English-speaking whites will be outnumbered by Afrikaners in about three years. Thus it is argued that if the three territories can be combined under a government that has control over immigration, they will be able to resist the Afrikaner drive northward. Given the Afrikaner population already within the borders of the territories, this seems unlikely. But if no closer association is arranged, Southern Rhodesia, despite its almost-Dominion-status, may drift into being a satellite of the Union, if not actually joining it. The economic case for closer association is slight, though the officials try, in the White Paper, to lay more emphasis on this than on the political motive, only rather vaguely hinted at. They argue that the economies of the territories are complementary but the only important examples of this alleged complementarity are Northern Rhodesian copper, Southern Rhodesian coal; and Northern Rhodesian cotton, Southern Rhodesian textile industry. Though secondary industry has increased quickly since the war, all three territories depend on world

The World War and the peace settlement affected the position of Great Britain in East Africa in three ways. First, the greater part of German East Africa was acquired, as the mandated territory of Tanganyika, and this, together with Kenya Colony and the Uganda Protectorate, forms the group generally known today as the East African Dependencies.' Second, with the settlement of returned soldiers and others in the highlands of Kenya, the small white population was considerably increased, thus bringing up the racial issue, and adding point to the question already being asked, whether Kenya was not a country destined for European colonization. Third, in the spirit of the mandate system, and in the face of white immigration, Great Britain accepted the principle of trusteeship for native peoples as the basis of her administration in Kenya, as well as in Tanganyika and Uganda. The Duke of Devonshire's Memorandum of 1923 2 laid it down that, "in the administration of Kenya His Majesty's Government regard themselves as exercising a trust on behalf of the African population . . . which may be defined as the protection and advancement of the native races." In fact this famous white paper went further, and enunciated the doctrine of paramountcy of native interests, so hotly contested later by European settlers. "Primarily," it declared, "Kenya is an African territory, and His Majesty's Government think it necessary definitely to record their considered opinion that the interests of the African natives must be paramount, and that if

An increasing incidence of trachoma in an urban Midland population has been shown to be mainly due to immigration of infected carriers from the Punjab. In areas where trachoma is common special clinics should be established for the treatment and follow-up of patients and contacts. Public health measures should be introduced to prevent the spread of the infection. Laboratory methods should be more widely used in the diagnosis and control of trachoma.

In Scotland there is considerable interest, both official and popular, in the level and composition of net outmigration. Three new sources of migration data which have become available in recent years provide the basic data for this study: the migration tables in the 1966 sample census, the centralized data on the movements of doctors' patients within the United Kingdom, and the International Passenger Survey. Net out-migration from Scotland in the I96os has been greater to overseas countries than to the rest of the United Kingdom, and has been related closely to external factors of labour demand and to the extent of past migration; Canada has been the dominant destination. The pattern of migration between the regions of Scotland and the regions of England and Wales is controlled above all by relative distance and relative economic opportunities. IN ENGLAND AND WALES much of the current popular interest in population migration focuses on the immigration of coloured people. In Scotland, where such immigration and its associated problems are very slight, the concern is much more with the level of net out-migration to the rest of the United Kingdom and particularly to overseas countries. The need to stem this outflow is one of the main platforms of the active Scottish National Party, and the first chapter of the important White Paper, The Scottish Economy, 1965-70, a Planfor Expansion, is devoted almost entirely to a review of Scottish migration trends. This White Paper set out the Government's plans for the expansion of the Scottish economy to about I970, within the framework of the now-outmoded National Plan, and one of the stated main objectives was to halve the annual net out-migration from Scotland. Migration has traditionally been regarded as a means of narrowing inter-regional economic differences, particularly in the level of unemployment, but it is now being accepted that, within advanced economies, where the market orientation of service and manufacturing industries becomes a dominant locational consideration, it may actually accentuate these differences, owing largely to the inter-dependence between supply of and demand for labour. Thus within Scotland the level of net out-migration is being regarded with concern, for fear that, without positive remedial action, it might become a self-perpetuating process, as it helps to maintain those inter-regional and even international differences of which it is a function. Fortunately the growing interest in migration trends has been paralleled by a growing availability of basic migration data, and it is the purpose of this paper to examine the pattern of recent migration to and from Scotland in relation to three sources of data which have only become available in recent years. All three permit a study of gross as well as net movements and have the advantage of covering the whole population (although often on a sample basis) as opposed to some of the sources which have been used extensively in the past (for example, Ministry of Labour data on the movement of insured employees). Census Migration Tables In both Scotland and England & Wales the 1961 Census was the first to include a direct question on migration. It asked for a person's usual address on 23 April 1960, if it differed from

The public discussions in Canada which ensued as a result of the White Paper on immigration are in a great measure responsible for the revised immigration regulations which came into force on October 1, 1967. The new regulations are based on the government White Paper. "With these regulations," the Hon. Jean Marchand, Canadian Minister of Manpower and Immigration said in a written statement, "I believe we can abolish dis? crimination, pay more regard to the claims of family relationship, act with both greater efficiency and greater compassion than in the past and, through an expansionist immigration policy, serve the manpower needs of our growing Canadian economy." The regulations set up three categories of immigrants?sponsored, nominated and independent. Sponsorship rights previously limited in cases of applicants from certain countries, will apply on equal terms to all areas of the world, and thus, in future, as it were, no area of the world is "off limits" for sponsorship of immigrants by their relatives in Canada. This means that a close family relationship with a Canadian citizen or resident will make it easier for a potential immigrant to gain admission to Canada. For others, the current standards of education and professional skill are revised with the application of objective tests and point ratings in nine categories. Immigrants in this category, most of whom will have no rela? tives in Canada, will qualify for entry if they can compile 50 "assessment units" based on their education, skill, age, and six other factors. Provision is also made for adopted children and, in cases where the only dependent is a husband or wife, for the "nearest living relative." The selection standards will also be linked closely to economic and manpower needs.

In a national prevalence study of multiple sclerosis (M.S.) in the Republic of South Africa based on census day 1960 there were 118 individuals with M.S. who were born in Northern Europe (United Kingdom and other parts of North and Central Europe) and who had emigrated to the Republic by 1960. Their prevalence rate was 49 per 100,000 immigrants in comparison with a prevalence of 11 per 100,000 among native-born English-speaking white South Africans.To study the possible effect of age at immigration it was necessary to relate the M.S. immigrants to the appropriate denominator-the population at risk according to age at immigration. The population at risk by age at immigration has been estimated by two methods in an indirect fashion with the assistance of the Bureau of Census (1960) and by surveys of the population at risk 1968-9. Both studies suggest that the risk of developing M.S. was reduced to less than a third of the expected risk among those who immigrated under the age of 15 or 16.This study is further evidence that M.S. is an acquired exogenous disease, the precise nature of which is still not certain but, according to present knowledge, has as its leading contender the class of slow, latent, or temperate viruses.