The lower enterprisers’ costs that resulted from immigration surely did not accrue to the advantage of the employers alone.  Bearing in mind the fact that the employing-enterpriser is a middleman,[3] we may see that the lower costs must, in most cases, be passed on to the consumers in the form of lower prices of products.  And often the consumer, as the employer of domestic service at lower rates than otherwise would be possible, gets this advantage directly.  This increases the number of those whose self-interest, at least when narrowly judged, leads them to favor the policy of unrestricted immigration, Tho perhaps less general than it once was, this sentiment in favor of immigration is still potent.  The continuous inflow of immigrants has in many industries come to be looked upon as an indispensable part of the labor supply.  Conditions of trade, methods of manufacturing, prices, profits, and the capital value of the enterprises have become adjusted to the fact.  Hence results one of those illusions cherished by men whenever they identify their own profits with the public welfare.  Without immigration, it is said, “the supply of labor would not be equal to the demand.”  It would not at the wages prevailing.  But supply and demand have reference to a certain price.  At a higher wage the amount of labor offered and the amount demanded would come to an equality.  This would temporarily curtail profits, and other prices would, after readjustment, be in a different ratio to wages.

Sec. 6. #Pressure of immigration upon native wage-workers.# There must always have been cases where the labor incomes of workers were somewhat depressed by the incoming of immigrants.  Indeed, that must to some extent always be so when the natives continue to work alongside of the immigrant at just the same job.  But before the Civil War living conditions were simple, wages comparatively high and (more important) pretty steadily rising, and the wage-earning class not yet a large share of the population.  Moreover, this conflict of interest was minimized and often quite avoided by the native changing to another occupation.  In the old days there was always the outlet of free land on the frontier, now closed.  Always there has been a better opportunity for natives to move into higher positions of foremanship or as employers of immigrant labor.

As the wage-earners have become relatively more numerous, many of them have felt more keenly the pressure of competition from immigrant labor.  Moreover, the immigration since 1890 has been increasingly from southern and southeastern Europe, from countries with much lower standards of living, and has been of enormous proportions.  Here are some significant figures as to immigration since 1820.