§ MR. HOWARD VINCENTI beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if his attention has been called to the rejection by America of certain indigent emigrants recently conveyed to New York by the Cunard steamship Umbria, and to the company being required by the United States Authorities to bring them back to Liverpool; and, if he can state the nationality of these persons who are unfit for America, and, in the event of their being foreigners, if their re-patriation can be effected, having regard to there being less space in the United Kingdom than in America for superfluous foreign workers?
§ *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH, Bristol, W.)I am informed by the company that the passengers in question are seven Belgians, who, it is alleged, had, by previous contract, engaged themselves to labour at their avocations as glass-blowers in the United States, and had thus brought themselves within the category of persons who are prohibited by American law from landing in that country; also that the men were not indigent, and that their families who accompanied them to New York, remain in America. It is understood that the men are returning to Belgium.