Immigration and Settlement: Some General Considerations

Someone who knew public life in America once said that the American formula for tackling any national problem is first to exaggerate it and then to forget it. The particular problem which lurches to the front is identified as ’the American dilemma’. It is exhaustively analysed, discussed, publicised, and, of course, duly solved. Mean-while the general public, slightly bored, finds its attention claimed for some other ’confrontation ’ or ’catastrophe’. I doubt whether this is particularly an American phenomenon. Rather it is a natural product of the processes of democracy allied with the methods and techniques of mass communication. Everyone is expected to attend to one idea at the same time, and the suggestion is not entertained that there can be questions which, though identified, admit of no final answer at some given moment of time or that analysing a problem does not automatically produce an immediate or satisfactory solution. Two things are looked for b