Visconti Venosta to Charles C. Marsh, January 16, 1873

Viscount Venosta to Mr. Marsh.

Mr. Minister: In your note of the 7th instant you did me the honor to call the attention of His Majesty’s government to the fact that Italian emigrants to a considerable number had disembarked at New York destitute of almost every means of subsistence, and that they are now a charge upon the public charity.

You added that this unusual number seems to be owing to the artifices of emigration agents in this kingdom, who, in order to create a source of profit, pretend that the United States offer the prospect of good employment, which is, on the contrary, especially difficult to obtain during the winter season. You then propose to correct this erroneous impression by means of notices to that effect in the most widely-circulated journals of this kingdom.

The liberal legislation in vigor in this country in every branch of the public service forbade and forbids the government of His Majesty to interfere with the matter of emigration beyond putting down fraud which might take place and obliging observance of the ordinary police regulations. We shall not fail in our duty in the present emergency. The careful reports of the royal consul-general at New York and of the royal minister at Washington had already put us in the position to institute a strict investigation of these facts, and to provide that the warning of what has taken place, properly spread among the population, might act as a restraint upon unwise emigration. In any case, however, the royal government is very grateful to you for having contributed, by having published in the papers the notice I have since seen, to check an evil we sincerely deplore without the power to apply a radical remedy.

For the very reason that it is so manifestly our interest that arms already so needed should not be taken away from agriculture and national industries, the warning of the sufferings to which emigrants expose themselves would be much more efficacious proceeding from your legation than from the Italian authorities.

Regarding the burden imposed by this exceptional injunction upon the federal institution for the protection of emigrants, and upon the charity of the citizens of New York, I am happy to note that, according to a recent report of the royal consul-general, of the 1,500 emigrants who landed there during the past week, there remained at the date of the 23d of December to the charge of the commissioners of Castle Garden only a hundred at the most, the others living on their resources and with the assistance of their compatriots, or else having already found work, either in the city of New York itself or in the State of Virginia, where two hundred and fifty were sent at the expense of a generous Italian.

I avail myself, Mr. Minister, of this occasion to renew to you the assurance of my high consideration.