[258-11]Besides Württemberg, Baden also prescribed 25 years; in Saxony and Hessen-Darmstadt, 21 sufficed; in Prussia even 18.Schäffleadvocates a minimum age of 25 years for males and 22 years for women (loc. cit.). Similarly,Mohl, loc. cit.
[258-12]Why, hitherto, in Sweden, by way of exception, military service promoted early marriage, seeWappäus, Bevölkerungsstatistik, II, 357. In France, on the other hand, the increase of population since 1815 has been almost exactly in the inverse ratio of the strength of the military levy. Acad. des Sc. Morales et Polit., 1867, II, 159.
[258-13]Malthus, Principle of Population, 10, ch. 13.
[258-14]Malthus, Principle of Population, IV, ch. 4, 5. It is a great error to suppose that the number of immoral acts increases and decreases with the frequency of temptation. In Ireland, farmers very frequently keep their men servants and maid servants even after the latter have married. But the very facility with which a fall is legalized, increases very largely the number of reckless marriages. (Meidinger, Reise, II, 187 seq.) In the country about Göttingen also, where the people marry much earlier on an average than in that about Calenberg, illegitimate births are much more frequent.
[258-15]Even no other legal obstacle which could make marriage more difficult occurred toMalthus, except that which consists in the refusal of public assistance after the expiration of a fixed period of time. (Principle of Population, IV, ch. 8; V, ch. 2.)
[258-16]See the tables in the Tübinger Zeitschrift, 1868, 624 ff. Thus, formerly, in Rhenish Bavaria, where there was complete liberty allowed in this matter, the poor rates compared with the population, were only 34.6 per cent. of the average in the rest of Bavaria; and the number of illegitimate births was not so unfavorable by one-half. (Rivet, in the Archiv der polit. Oekonomie, N. F., I, 39.) The Bavarian law of the 16th of April, 1868, which provides that the community or parish can object to a person's marriage only on account of unpaid parish taxes or poor rates (art. 36) largely increased the number of marriages and diminished the illegitimate births; in the first year to 22.2 per cent., in the second to 17, and in 1873 to 13.2 per cent. (Allg. luth Kirchenztg., 12 März, 1875.) According to official statement, this law did more to improve the condition of workmen in the towns than any other cause. CompareThudichum, Ueber unzulässige Beschränkungen des Rechts der Verehelichung, 1868. Per contra,E. Schübler, Ueber Niederlassung und Verehelichung in den verschiedenen deutschen Staaten, 1855.
[258-17]Reinholdhas recommended the direct limitation of the procreation of children by the process ofinfibulationpracticed on boys fourteen years of age and continued until they arrive at a marriageable age or are able to support illegitimate children. An[TN 113]der Uebervolkerung in Mitteleuropa,[TN 114]1827. Ueber die Population und Industrié, oder Beweis dass die Bevölkerung in hoch kultivieren[TN 115]Landern stets den Gewerbfleiss übereile, 1828. Ueber das menschliche Elend, welches durch Missbrauch der Zeugung herbeigeführt wird, 1828. Das Gleichgewicht der Bevölkerung als Grundlage der Wohlfahrt, 1829. The ancients proceeded sometimes in a similar way in the case of slave actors:Juvenal, VI, 73. CompareWinckelmann, Antichi inediti, Tav. 188.
[258-18]The obstacles formerly placed in many countries in the way of the marriage of Jews of allowing only the first-born to marry, and this only when a vacancy occurred in the number of families by death (Austria), was not based on a solicitude about population, but on religio-national intolerance, in part also on commercial police grounds.
[258-19]Fisher, Gesch. des deutschen Handels (1785 ff.), still considers war as a remedy for over-population, butM. Wirth, Grundzüge der N. Oek., rightly remarks that war destroys not so much children, women and the infirm as the most productive of the male population, and immense amounts of capital.
SECTION CCLIX.
EFFECTS OF EMIGRATION.
B. It is sufficiently evident that emigration from an over-populated country[259-1]may be attended with good consequences, especially when it takes place in organized bodies.[259-2]There is little danger that one who knows how to work and pray will go to the bad in a young agricultural colony. In a wilderness which has not yet been cleared, the greater number of proletarian vices spontaneously disappear. There is here no opportunity for jealousy or theft; little for intemperance, the gaming table, licentiousness or quarrelsomeness. Here labor is a necessity, and the rewards of industry and saving soon take a palpable shape. As the emigrant, in such a situation, can scarcely help marrying, children far from being a burthen, soon become companions to their parents in their solitude and, later, helpmates in business. The colonist belonging to the lower middle class is most certain of improving his condition. It may, indeed, require many and toilsome years before he can feel comfortable himself; but his children who would probably have led a proletarian life in the mother country may calculate with certainty on future well-being. The father's small capital which the outlay for education alone would have exhausted at home, here becomes the seed of a number of prosperous households.[259-3]It is otherwise with the mass of thepeople who remain at home. (Compare § 241.)[259-4]It is a matter of much more difficulty than is generally supposed by those who have not made a study of the matter, that the yearly emigration from countries like Germany should counterbalance the excess of births over deaths.[259-5]It is not tobe supposed that men who are really useless at home should be of any service in the colonies. How violently have notEnglish colonies opposed the advent of settlers from the poorhouses of the mother country. The classes which are readiest to emigrate: idlers, fickle characters, fathers of families with altogether too many children, artisans who by a revolution in industry have lost the means of making a livelihood, are precisely those who find it most difficult to obtain employment on the other side of the water.[259-6]Most colonies refuse to receive persons over forty years of age at their own expense. But a young man intellectually and physically able to work, can always make his way even in the old world; only the weakersuccumb under the pressure of over-population. Lastly, it should be considered what an amount of capital is required for purposes of emigration and settlement. If emigrants, on the average, take more capital with them than is estimated to be theper capitaamount of capital possessed by those remaining at home,[259-7]the consequence would be that, as a result of this very successful emigration, the ratio of consumers to the amount of capital in the country would become more and more unfavorable. The emigrating portion of the country might experience the advantage of this, but the great mass of the population remaining at home would become poorer in capital and in vigorous men,[259-8]and richer in the comparativelyneedy. The comfortless contrast between colossal wealth and beggarly want could only be thereby increased, since it is almost exclusively the lower middle class who emigrate to agricultural colonies. The over-rich, as a rule, will not, and proletarians can not, go thither.[259-9][259-10]
[259-1]CompareR. Mohl, in the Tübinger Zeitschrift für Staatswissenschaft, 1847, 320 ff.;Roscher, Nationalökonomische Ansichten über die Deutsche Auswanderung in the Deutschen Viertejahrsschrift, 1848, No. 43, 96 ff., the same author's Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung, 2 Aufl., 1856, 342 ff.;J. Fröbel, Die Deutsche Auswanderung und ihre Kulturhistorische Bedeutung, 1858.
[259-2]Unfortunately, emigration in groups has recently become very rare, whereas, during the middle ages, it took place preponderantly, first in armies and then in communities.
[259-3]According to parliamentary investigations, the Irish laborer in Australia, Canada, etc., improves in a few years to such an extent that he can scarcely be distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon. He becomes industrious, self-reliant etc. (Edinb. Rev., 1950, 25.) In North America, however, the Irish seldom become really well off, or occupy a position of consequence in society. (Görtz, Reise, 88.)
[259-4]E. G. Wakefield, in other respects so intelligent a writer on the theory of colonization, is of opinion that every nation might, by giving a proper direction to emigration, establish such a density of population as it desired. Thus, for instance, if there were 10,000 marriages contracted every year in a country, and it was provided that each of these 10,000 couples should be sent to some colony immediately after marriage, the whole mother country would become extinct in from 60 to 70 years. This extreme is of course not desired by any one; but the way to be followed in order to attain a desirable limit is hereby pointed out. That emigration has in so few instances checked the advance of population, Wakefield accounts for by the fact that the means furnished to emigration have to a certain extent been wasted, and that old men, children, etc., who either had no influence on population as yet, or could have no more in future, constituted a large proportion of those who left the country. (England and America.)
Evidently an important consideration is here omitted, viz.: that there is no such a thing as a normal year of marriages, etc. If, for instance, all males were to wait until their 30th year, and all females until their 20th, to enter the married state, and that the government were to send all competent persons as soon as they had reached this age to America, what would be the consequence? Numberless situations affording the means of supporting a family would be vacant, and a number of young men of 29 and of young women of 19 would be induced to marry, etc. The number of children to a marriage in England in 1838-44 was 4.13; 1845-49, 3.96; 1850-54, 3.26; 1855-59, 4.15. (Journal des. Econ., Oct., 1861.)
[259-5]Benjamin Franklin, in 1751, estimated the aggregate number of English inhabitants in the North American colonies at 1,000,000, of whom only 80,000 had immigrated into the country. Hence, from 1790 to 1840, the United States, the promised land of European emigrants, received only about 1,500,000 emigrants. From 1820 to 1859, the number (according toBromwellandHübner) was 4,509,612; according to a report of the New York Chamber of Commerce (1874), 9,054,132 since 1824. An annual immigration of 100,000 was reached for the first time in 1842. According to the census of 1870, there were in the United States 5,567,229 persons born in foreign countries, of which number 1,690,410 were born in Germany, 1,855,827 in Ireland, and 5,550,904 in England. The aggregate emigration from the British empire, which unquestionably possesses most colonies and the largest marine, was, on an average, between 1825 and 1835, only about 55,000; 1836 to 1845, over 80,000; in 1845 alone, over 93,000, while the yearly excess of births over deaths between 1841 and 1848, according toPorter, was in England and Wales alone, on an average, 169,000. During the succeeding years emigration received an extraordinary stimulus (which changed the proportion) in the influence of the discovery of the Californian and Australian mines, and in the Irish famine. Hence the emigration was, at least,
18inPersons.1847,258,0001848,248,0001849,299,0001850,280,0001852, (maxim.)368,0001853,329,0001855,176,0001857,212,0001858-60, (average)96,0001862,121,0001863,223,0001865,181,0001867,105,1611870,202,5111871,174,930
while the excess of births over deaths (in Great Britain alone) amounted, in 1856, to 309,000. Between 1815 and 1870, there emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United States, 4,472,672 persons; to the British North American Colonies, 1,391,771; to Australia, 988,423; to other points, 160,771; an aggregate of 7,013,637. (Statist. Journal, 1872, 115.) On the other hand, between 1861 and 1871, 543,015 persons either returned or immigrated to the United Kingdom. It is estimated, (according toHübner'sJahrb. der Volkswirthschaft und Statistik, 263 ff.; VIII, 222, and the Rudolst. Auswandererzeitung) that in no year before 1844 were there more than 33,000 emigrants from Germany. On the other hand,
18inAt least.1844,43,0001845,67,0001846,94,0001847,109,0001848,81,0001849,89,0001850,82,0001851,112,0001852,162,0001853,156,0001854, (maxim.)250,0001855.81,0001856.98,0001857,115,0001858-61, (average)4,6201866137,0001867,151,000By Hamburg and Bremen alone—1867-71, (average)33,355 & 48,2961872,57,621 & 66,9191873,51,432 & 48,6081874,24,093 & 17,913
while the natural increase of population in Prussia alone (1843-55) amounted to almost 150,000 per annum; in the kingdom of Saxony (1834-49), to over 18,000; in Austro-Germany and the five German kingdoms together, 305,000. (Wappäus, Bevölkerungsstatistik, I, 133.) In New York alone, in 1852, 118,600 Germans arrived; in 1853, 119,500; in 1854, over 178,000. That, at present, emigration is, on the whole, so much more frequent than formerly, is accounted for by the largely improved means of communication. However, it was estimated a century ago, that Europe sent at least 100,000 persons per annum to the East and West Indies. Between 1700 and 1719, an aggregate of 105,972 persons emigrated to the Dutch East Indies; between 1747 and 1766, 162,598. (Saalfeld, Gesch. des Holländ. Ostindiens, II, 189.) It should not be ignored, however, that the readiness to forsake the fatherland, which only a short time ago was so usual in Germany (in England, it prevails chiefly among the Irish), justified the greatest solicitude for the roots of German national life. How little Germany really suffers from over-population, is shown especially by the circumstance that, for instance, in Prussia, it is precisely the most densely populated districts to which immigration is largest. Comparev. Viebahn, Zollverein. Statist, II, 242.
According toC. Negri, about 40,000 Italians emigrate every year at present; and it is said that there are, in Turkey, Egypt and Tunis, 70,000; in Peru, 14,000, and in Buenos Ayres, 84,000 Italians living. (I, Jahresbericht der Hamburg, geogr. Gesellsch., 1874.) In other Romanic and Slavic[TN 116]countries emigration is as yet insignificant. On the other hand, there were, in 1870, 214,574 native Scandinavians in the United States.
[259-6]While the most active demand for labor, for instance, existed in Australia generally, three government ships carrying emigrants arrived: one with English agricultural laborers, the second with former factory hands, the third with Irish. The agricultural laborers found places very rapidly a few days after their arrival; the factory hands did only tolerably well, while of the poor Irish not one-half could find anything to do, and became a burthen on the benevolence of the public. (Merivale, Lectures on Colonization and Colonies, II, 30 ff.)
[259-7]It is estimated that the first 21,200 settlers of New England brought about $1,000,000 with them. (Bancroft, Hist. of the United States.) The 50,000 emigrants who came to Quebec in 1832 were estimated to be worth $3,000,000. It is thought that German emigrants to America, bring with them, on an average, 280 thalers, to which must be added 40 thalers passage money. This seems very high, while German estimates are generally too low, because no emigrant has any interest to overestimate his property, but frequently to underestimate it. Thus, for instance, in 1848-49, 8,780 persons emigrated from Prussia with 1,713,370 thalers of property, i. e., 195 thalers each. (Amtl. Tabellen, f., 1849, I, 290.) It is said that between 1844 and 1851, 45,300 persons emigrated from Bavaria with governmental consent, and that they carried with them property to the amount of 19,233,000 florins; that is, 424 florins each. (Beiträge zur Statistik des Kgr. Bayern, III, 322 seq.) Here the average amount of means carried away by emigrants seems to decrease; a sign that the mass of those emigrating come from successively lower strata of the population. (Hermann, Bewegung der Bevölk., 26 seq.)
A still smaller amount of capital would suffice for the purpose of emigration itself. Persons who settled in Canada (1823) cost the English nation £22 per capita, which amount provided them with cows, seeds, agricultural implements, help in building, and food for twelve months. According to the Edinburg Rev., Dec., 1826, only £15, 4s. were necessary for the same purpose. If it be borne in mind that many of these settlers afterwards caused five times as many relatives to come over at their own expense, the necessary outlay per capita would seem very small indeed; frequently not more than one year's maintenance in the poorhouse would have cost. Almost £1,000,000 are sent every year from the United States through banks and emigration bureaus, by emigrants, to the United Kingdom, to bring over their relatives. (Statist. Journal, 1872, 386.)
[259-8]It is said that in Mecklenburg agricultural labor has much deteriorated because the strong men emigrate and because the old and children remain at home. (Bassewitz-Schumacher, Comm. Bericht über die Verhältnisse der ländl. Arbeiterklassen, 1873.)
[259-9]J. S. Mill, indeed, thinks that even where there is a larger emigration of capital than of men, the combined pressure which both exert on the natural forces of the country emigrated from must become less. (Principles, IV, ch. 5, 1.) CompareHermann, loc. cit. 28 ff.Hermannalso shows very clearly how emigrants to America would frequently like to return; but the expense of returning deters them from the undertaking, and they manage to get along by great effort, which, however, would have afforded them a livelihood if they had remained at home. Staatsw. Unters. II, Aufl. 480.
[259-10]Against real over-population, the emigration of women would be much more effective than that of men; and yet the emigration of the latter occurs much less frequently in large numbers. Thus, between 1853 and 1858, 3,694 males emigrated from Saxony and only 2,609 females. Between 1866 and 1874, there were 1,754,231 male immigrants to the United States, and only 1,147,446 females. According toRümelin(Allg. Ztg., December, 1865), the large emigration from Württemberg produced by the years of scarcity—1850 ff.—left such a preponderance of women that 1/6 of all the young women who have reached a marriageable age at present, would remain unmarried, even if all the marriageable young men were to engage in matrimony. Thus negative emigration does very little to cure the social disease of involuntary celibacy.
SECTION CCLX.
COLONIST EMIGRATION.
All these dangers disappear when the portion of the nation which has emigrated continues economically connected with the body of the nation remaining at home. (Colonizing emigration.) Here emigration not only provides "elbow room" in the mother country, but there arises at the same time an increased demand for manufactured articles, an increased supply of raw material, by means of which an absolute growthof population is made possible.[260-1]England has hitherto enjoyed these advantages to the fullest extent, Germany scarcely at all. German emigrants to Russia, America, Australia, or Algiers, were, together with all they have and are, for the most part lost to their fatherland. They become the customers and suppliers of foreign countries, and frequently enough the competitors and even enemies of Germany.[260-2][260-3]
It might be very different if the stream of German emigration was directed towards German colonies for instance, as happened in later medieval times, towards the fertile but thinly populated parts of Hungary, towards the provinces of Austria and Prussia; perhaps, as List wished, towards those parts of Turkey which, God willing, shall yet constitute the inheritance of the German people. Thus, through the instrumentality of emigration, might a new Germany arise, which would directly or indirectly and necessarily ally itself to the old, politically, and at the same time constitute the surest bulwark against the danger from Slavic power.
Politico-economically, this country might be utilized by Germany as the United States uses the Mississippi valley and the Far West, especially as concerns the exclusiveness of the use. It is true, that emigrants could be invited to these quarters in good conscience only when the soil had been prepared for them. They should find there, on their arrival, complete legal security, especially for the landed property to be acquired by them; likewise, at least, full personal, religious, and also commercial freedom.[260-4]
It may be asked, whether there are places in the other quarters of the world adapted to German colonization in the higher sense of the word. These should of course be countries adapted to agriculture as practiced by the Germans,[260-5]with an easily accessible coast and provided in the interior with navigable streams. Here the Germans should be able not only to live together in large numbers, but the rest of the population should be inferior to them in political training and in national feeling. Otherwise, there would in time bedanger of their losing the German character and feeling.[260-6]The difficulty of establishing German colonies in the southern temperate parts of Chili and Brazil would be aggravated by the very same causes which prevented the creation of a German navy for centuries; and they would almost certainly have to calculate on the jealousy of all other colonial powers and of the United States.[260-7]We should not forget that from Raleigh's time to the present, almost every speculation having for its object the founding of a colony, whether originating with individual capitalists or with joint-stock companies, has been, considered from a mercantile point of view, a failure. The fruits of new colonization are generally reaped in the succeeding generation; and such delay is scarcely in harmony with the ideas of our own times. Almost every settlement has had its critical period when the settlers almost despaired. This produced less harm in the 17th century; for they were for the most part compelled to persevere. In our day, they would probably disband and go in search of an easier life in colonies already existing. And yet, Germany must make haste if it would not soon see the last appropriate locality occupied by other and more resolute nations.[260-8][260-9]
[260-1]AsTorrensshows there is no kind of trade that so much promotes production, or which is so capable of growth as the exchange of the means of subsistence and raw materials against manufactured articles. The Budget: On Commercial and Colonial Policy, 1841 ff.
[260-2]Care should be taken not to allow one's self to be misled here by relative numbers. In the United States, the amount of imports was, from—
The British Empire.France.Germany withoutAustria.1840-41,$51,000,000$24,000,000$2,450,0001849-50,85,000,00027,600,0008,780,0001859-60,138,600,00043,200,00018,500,000
Hence, absolutely, the German exports increased in 19 years only about $16,000,000; the French (without any emigration), over $19,000,000; the English, more than five times the German. Of the 30,633 emigrants who sailed from Bremen in 1874, only 72 did not go to the United States. (D. Ausw. Ztg., 5 Jul., 1875.) The total exports of the United Kingdom to its colonies amounted, 1840-44, to an average value of £7,833,000; 1865-69, to £27,146,000; while those to foreign countries amounted, during the same periods of time, to only from £28,871,000 to £93,558,000. English colonial trade amounted, in 1866, to £6 2s. per capita of the colonial population; the trade with the East Indies, to only 9s. 7d. per capita of the East Indian population. (Statist. Journal, 1872, 123 ff.)
[260-3]There has hitherto been little to rejoice over in the condition of German emigrants. The greater number of them had received so little education that they were by no means in a way to oppose the weapons of attack of Anglo-Americans. The glorious literature of their old home scarcely existed for them. Almost the only national peculiarity which they held to with any tenacity was the disposition to a want of union among themselves. Hence they were necessarily de-Germanized in a few generations, after a toilsome and quarrelsome period of transition. How seldom, even in Ohio, did German names occur in the list of public officials, while in New York the number of German names on the poor list is very considerable. The situation, however, seems to have improved in modern times, and the national coherency and political power of the mother country have gone hand in hand with the revival of attachment on the part of the emigrants to the land of their nativity. How beautifully was this attachment manifested during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71!
[260-4]CompareFr. List, in the D. Vierteljahrsschrift, 1842, No. IV.Dieterici, über Aus- und Einwanderungen, 1847, 18.
[260-5]No Mosquito-coast!
[260-6]How tenaciously have the Germans held to their nationality in Transylvania and the Baltic provinces, and how rapidly they lost it in Pennsylvania!
[260-7]On emigration to Brazil, seev. Tschudi'sreport of Oct. 6 to the Swiss parliament, 1860.
[260-8]Think only of the project of the Belgian East Indian Company, which Austria could not carry out at the beginning of the preceding century. Proposition byFröbel(loc. cit., 87 ff.) that England and Prussia should together found a German colony in the valley of the La Plata, to whichWappäusrightly objects, that there are few places there in which peasant emigrants would like to acquire land. (Mittel- und Südamerika, 1866, 1027.)
[260-9]CompareWappäus, Deutsche Auswanderung und Kolonisation, 1846.
SECTION CCLXI.
STATE AID TO EMIGRANTS.
The inquiry, What can the state reasonably do for emigration, must, of course, receive a very different answer according as there is question of merely negative (§ 259) or colonizing emigration (§ 262). To give the latter a proper impulse requires so great an outlay of capital and labor that it can be made only by the state; and in Germany, on a large scale, only by a union of several states. We must not here deceive ourselves. Emigrants will go uniformly where they have the nearest prospect of a comfortable future. Whether in emigrating they shall continue their connection with their old home, or whether their children shall be completely denationalized is a matter with which very few emigrants concern themselves; and considering the amount of education they generally possess, this need excite no surprise. Hence, if Germany would unite its departing children in a colony permanently German, and therefore new,[261-1]it would be necessary for it to offer them, at its own expense, at least the same advantages which they would find in older and fully established colonies. He who would reap should not endeavor to evade the sacrifice incident to the sowing.[261-2]Even great sacrifices in this direction would certainly be richly rewarded if properly made. Probably the outlay would never be directly returned to the national treasury; but there is all the more reason, on this account, that there should be an indirect return by the increase of duties and other indirect taxes.
On the other hand, the costly assistance of the state in the case of merely negative emigration would, as a rule, be folly. Who would compel the children of the great national family, who necessarily or voluntarily remain faithful to the paternal roof, to pay tribute to those who turn their backs on the old home for ever? The wealthy especially who remain in the country have to put up with the disadvantage of paying higher wages for labor.
Simple humanity requires that the state should not be blind to the movement of emigration, nor abandon it to all the risks of improvident liberty. Hence it should endeavor to remove the ignorance prevailing on questions of emigration. It should require personal and other guaranties that emigration agents are not simply dealers in men, and that the contracts made with ship-owners by emigrants are really performed. It should exercise a strict superintendence over the mode of transportation of emigrants, and see to it that its consuls accredited to America, etc. assist them by word and deed.[261-3]The legislation of Bremen is a model in this respect, and has contributed largely to make that port a principal outlet for German emigration.[261-4]The provisions of the laws of October1, 1832, of July 14, 1854, of July 9, 1866, etc., embrace among others the following: Only a citizen of Bremen, of good repute, and who has given security to the amount of five thousand thalers, shall be entitled to receive and contract with emigrants for passage; to each passenger shall be allotted a space of at least twelve square feet of surface and six feet high; provision shall be made for the longest possible time of passage; for instance, for thirteen weeks for a voyage northerly from the equator. At the same time, the ship-owner is required to give security that in case of accident to the vessel, disabling it in such a way as to unfit it to continue the journey, he shall return the fare of all passengers saved, and pay them an additional sum of from twenty to forty thalers, according to the length of the passage, to cover the cost of salvage, to support themselves for the time being, and enable them to continue their journey. The entire matter is controlled by a rigid system of ship-investigation, and is under the superintendence of a board of officers, made up of senators and members of the chamber of commerce.[261-5]Among English provisions[261-6]particularlyworthy of imitation is that which requires the government agents in Canada, etc. to furnish information gratis to emigrants. But to keep their clients from the practice of idling about, so ruinous to themselves, the agents refuse aid to all emigrants who, without sufficient reason, remain over eight days in the harbor.
[261-1]Much might be gained if German emigrants to the United States would concentrate themselves in one state, and thus soon make it a German state. For many reasons Wisconsin is best adapted to such a purpose.
[261-2]Provision made to put the colonists in possession of lands well explored and surveyed, to have the preliminary labor performed by persons already acclimated—labor which is the most injurious to health, the clearing of the land, the construction of buildings—purchasing the agricultural implements at wholesale, etc.
[261-3]v. Gessler(Tübinger Zeitschr., 1862, 398 ff.), recommends the establishment of an "asylum" in the neighborhood of the locality where the emigrants are likely to settle. In this asylum they might, during the time immediately following their arrival, find shelter, food, medicines, etc., and all the implements necessary to a settler, at cost. The institution might be established either by the home government, by a humanitarian emigration society, or by a land company in the colony itself.
[261-4]There passed
In 1854.In 1867.number of emigrants.Through Bremen,76,87573,971Through Hamburg,50,81942,845(Of these directly only32,310)(38,170)Through Havre,95,84922,753Through Antwerp,25,84312,086Through other ports,2,500
The trade of Bremen has, as the result of this transportation of emigrants, grown just as that of the Italian sea coast cities by the transportation of the crusaders in the Middle Ages. Here, as in so many other cases, genuine philanthropy, in the long run, moves nearly parallel with real economic advantage. And in fact, the Statuta civitatis Messiliæ of 1228 (IV, 24 seq., 28, 30) contain provisions in relation to the crusaders which forcibly remind one of the modern Bremen laws. Similarly in Venice: CompareDepping, Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et l'Europe, 284; II, 313 seq.
[261-5]Similar provisions in Hamburg, June 3, 1850, revised February 26, 1855; in France, January 15, 1855; in the United States of America, March 2, 1855. CompareHübner, Statistisches Jahrbuch, 1856, 289 ff. However, there were serious complaints, a short time since, concerning German emigrant transportation, especially of the treatment of women: Novara-Reise, III, 49 ff. Ausland, 1863, No. 8. One of the principal wants is that emigration agents should be held responsible for detaining their clients a long time and at a heavy expense, in places of embarkation.
[261-6]CompareMcCulloch, Commercial Dictionary, v. Colonies, 9 George, IV., ch. 21. The law of June 30, 1852, carries solicitude for the lot of emigrants very far. It embraces 91 articles and 11 additions. Everything is most minutely provided for, even the form of the passage ticket. The old law of 1803, drawn up in accordance with the advice of the Scotch Highland Society, was apparently devised in the interest of the emigrants; but it contained a multitude of minute requirements suggested by a desire on the part of the advisers to restrict emigration. Hence it was, in practice, by consent of both parties, always evaded. CompareLord Selkirk, Observations on the present State of the Highlands of Scotland, with a View of the Causes and probable Consequences of Emigration (1805). Edinburgh R., December, 1826, 61; January, 1828.
SECTION CCLXII.
EMIGRATION AND PAUPERISM.
As a very rare exception, an emigration suddenly undertaken, well directed and on a very large scale, may be made to constitute the efficient means preparatory to the abolition of pauperism. Where, for instance, by reason of the subdivision of the land into extremely small parcels, farming on a diminutive scale has come to preponderate; where the popular home-industries have been reduced to a miserable condition by the immoderate competition of great foreign manufacturers and machinery, the hopelessness of the situation consists principally in this: that every improvement made must be preceded by a concentration of the forces of labor, and their combination with the powers of capital; which for the moment renders a great number of those who have been laborers hitherto entirely superfluous. That is, to raise the level of the whole public economy and provide a decent livelihood for 10,000 men, it would be necessary to condemn another 10,000 to death from starvation! Most political doctors recoil at the thought of this transition-crisis. They content themselveswith palliatives which, in the end, cost much and afford no help. The simplest remedy here would evidently be to cause those workmen who have become superfluous to emigrate at the expense of the state. Next, the necessary economic reforms should be carried out at home and the return of the evil prevented by rigid legislation. The more sudden this emigration is, the nearer it comes to taking place, so to speak, all at once, the less possible it is that the increase of population should keep even pace with it. The condition of the proletarians who remained at home could not fail to have a favorable influence in this respect; for nothing leads men so much into contracting reckless marriages as the total absence of any prospect of amelioration of their condition in the future.[262-1][262-2]
[262-1]Many of the most competent thinkers have designated such emigration as the only remedy for the over-population of Ireland. CompareTorrens, The Budget, passim;J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 10; Edinburg Rev., January, 1850.Lord Palmerstonretained the wealthiest farmers on his estates who were intending to emigrate, by causing the poor ones to emigrate at his own expense. The independent emigration of the Irish at their own expense which has been going on for some years, might become an incalculable gain to the English nation. By the poor law, 4 and 5 William IV., c. 76, the English parishes are authorized, with the approval of the central poor board, to assist emigration to the extent of £10 per capita. Between 1849 and 1853, they assisted 1,826 poor persons on an average per annum, who received for that purpose £10,352. (Kries, Engl. Armenpflege, 1863, 30.)
[262-2]It is an interesting thought ofR. von Mokl, Polizeiwissenschaft, I, 130, that real over-population, when no one was willing to emigrate of his own accord, might be remedied by a species of emigration-conscription of young adults by the drawing of lots, the right of substitution, etc. The ancient Italians sometimes realized this idea by thever sacrum. Similarly in many cases of Greek emigration, by the worship of Apollo:[TN 117]CompareW. H. Roscher, Apollon und Mars (1873), 82 ff.
SECTION CCLXII (a).
TEMPORARY EMIGRATION.
Besides definitive emigration, temporary emigration deserves special consideration. If the wages of labor are much lowerin one locality than in another which is easily accessible,[262a-1]the workmen of the former place resolve much more readily on periodical migrations thither than on permanent settlements in the place. It is especially the difficult work of harvesting, where farmers are pressed for time,[262a-2]and that of house-building,[262a-3]which are undertaken by these birds of passage; andmountainous regions, with their limited agriculture, their late crops and their longing look into the far-off which is found united with a deep-rooted attachment to home, are the places whence they come.[262a-4]When their home is distinguished in certain branches of labor, they are wont to carry these with them abroad, and in such case their sojourn away from home is generally longer.[262a-5]The shorter and the more vagabond-like their migration, the less apt is it to be an economic blessing to the wanderers themselves.[262a-6]There must necessarily result, as a consequence, a species of equalization between therates of wages in the country receiving and the country furnishing them.[262a-7]This may be a great national misfortune for the latter, inasmuch as its working class may thus be forced to a lower standard of life, and all their providence and self-control in the founding of a family be made fruitless by the arrival of less capable foreigners.[262a-8]The hatred existing among the members of a higher class for parvenus from a lower corresponds in this respect to the mutual hatred of two countries for the natives of the other, (v. Mangoldt.) Considered from the point of view of the country furnishing these migratory classes, temporary emigration has this advantage over definitive emigration, that the persons leaving the country always maintain their economic connection with their home.[262a-9]The most striking example of this is afforded by those merchants, ship-owners, etc. who are, so to speak, pioneers in foreign markets for Switzerland and Bremen. Only there is always danger of a crisis when the usual flow is suddenly checked.[262a-10]
[262a-1]The locust-like emigration from Ireland to England takes three principal directions: from Dublin to Liverpool, from Cork to Bristol, from the North-East to Scotland. This even before 1835. (Berkeley, Querist, Nr., 526 ff.) Great increase since the fare has been reduced on the steamers to from 4 to 6 pence. (Edinburg Rev., XLV, 54 ff.; XLVII, 236 ff.)
[262a-2]Thus mowers emigrate from Württemberg and the Odenwald into the valley of the Rhine; inhabitants of the Alps into the South German plains, and the inhabitants of the sandy and healthy localities into the Hanoverian marshes and Holland; inhabitants of the Brabant into France. Many go from Waesland, 5 and 6 miles distant from Holland, to sow a field manured and plowed by the owner with flax, and afterwards to weed and harvest it, etc., and at their own expense. (Schwerz, Belg. Landwirthschaft, II, 105.) Even in the sixteenth century, 20,000 Frenchmen went every year to Spain in harvest time. (Boden, Responsio ad Paradoxa, 49.) Migration of the East-goers (Ostgeher) from Wartebruch as far as Poland and Russia (Frühling, N. Landwirthsch., Ztg., 1870, 451 ff.) Galicians go into the Polish plains, and Poles into the Prussian low country (v. Haxthausen, Ländl. Verfassung, I, 99); Russians from the populous district of Oreland Poltawa etc. into the Southern steppes (Kohl, Reise, II, 118), and also out of Northern woody districts to Jaroslay, where they give themselves to the cultivation of the fields (v. Haxthausen, Studien, V, 198); Gallegos into the Portuguese wine region; inhabitants of the Abruzzi into the Roman Campagna (Galiani, Della Moneta, V, 4); Calabrians to Naples. In Tuscany, almost the entire cultivation of the unhealthy plains is done by the inhabitants of the mountains. Even in Africa migrations by thefulahsinto the plains before them (Ritter, Erdkunde, I, 349); of the inhabitants of the cataracts of the Nile into Lower Egypt, where they remain from six to eight years, and where they are in great favor because of their honesty as gate-keepers and pack-carriers. (Burckhardt, Travels, 147.)
[262a-3]In Paris, a great many masons and carpenters from Lothringen and Limousin, who return after from 6 to 7 months. The number of these migratory building workmen is estimated at over 40,000. (Wolowski.) Thus thousands of brick makers migrate from Vicentini and Friaul into Austria and Hungary; from the vicinity of lakes Como and Lugan, masons have been spread over all Italy, and this, it is said, has been going on a thousand years, (v. Rumohr, Reise in die Lombardei, 135 ff.) Yearly migration of about 3,000 brick finishers from Lippe-Detmold, which is very opportunely directed by the government. (F. G. Schulze, Nat. Oek., 606.)
[262a-4]In the Apennines,[TN 118]almost every valley has its own migration-district. Thus the Modeneses go to Corsica, and the Parmesanes to England. The migration from the German Tyrol amounts yearly to between 16,000 and 17,000 men. (v. Reden, Zeitschrift für Statistik, 1848, 522.) In the Canton of Tessin, over 11,000 passes are given for this purpose yearly; that is, to more than 10 per cent. of the entire population. The majority go to Upper Italy, but some go to Russia. The cheese-makers, pack-carriers and dealers in chestnuts, migrate from fall to spring; masons, glaziers, etc. in summer.
[262a-5]Savoyards as "shoe-blacks" etc. in Paris (L. Faucher, La Colonie des S. à Paris); Portuguese, as peddlers and pack-carriers in large cities in Brazil (Jahn, Beitr., 33); Gallegos in the large cities of Spain and Portugal as water-carriers; Bergamasks, in Milan and Genoa as pack-servants, where they constitute a kind of guild; the inhabitants about Lake Orta (south of the Lago Maggiore) as waiters, and hence the inns there are very good; Bohemian musicians, who carry on quite a different business at home during the winter; Grisons, as confectioners all over Europe. Many villages obtain from this source 20,000 florins. (Röder und Tscharner, C. Graübundten, I, 337.) There are at this time about three million people from China, and almost exclusively from the conquered and oppressed province of Fokien, in Farther India, where they execute the finer kinds of labor. (Ritter, Erdkunde, IV, 787 ff.)
[262a-6]In Tessin, the fields are tilled, and badly enough, by old men, women etc. The men spend in the taverns and in all kinds of vice what they saved during the working season (Franscini, C. Tessen, 156 ff.) Those who migrate from the vicinity of Osnabrück into Holland are said to bring back with them yearly about 100,000 thalers; but their abstinence from warm food, their bivouacking[TN 119]etc., to which they have recourse for the sake of frugality, lays the germs of numberless diseases. (J. Möser, P. Ph, I, 14 ff.) There are serious complaints of the demoralization of women produced in England by the gang-system, in which roving workmen, mostly Irish, are employed under a gang master to perform contract work. (L. Faucher, Etudes sur l'Angleterre, 2, ed. I, 383, ff.)
[262a-7]Hence, for instance, Osnabrück complained bitterly of the migration to Holland, because it raised the wages of servants. However, the absolute freedom of removal from one place to another produces not only a leveling of wages, but also an absolute rise of the rate of wages, as may be seen by contrasting it with theglebae adscriptio. Comparesupra, § 160.
[262a-8]Great danger to the national life of the English people by immigration from Ireland. The Irish laborers, bare-footed and ragged, restricting themselves to potatoes and whisky, have carried their disgusting habit of living in cellars, and of congregating several families together into one room, even with pigs as companions, over to England. (Th. Carlyle, On Chartism, 28 ff.;G. C. Lewis, The Condition of the Irish in England.) It is said that, in 1819, in London alone, there were over 70,000 Irish; in 1826, over 119,000. (Edinb. Rev. XLVII.) EvenJ. S. Millwould have no hesitation to prohibit this emigration to prevent the economic contagion spreading to English workmen. (Principles, I, ch. 14, 6.) Fortunately now Irish emigration has taken the direction of America, where there is more room. Whether in future Chinese emigration may not greatly endanger the condition of the lower classes, first in America and Australia, and then indirectly in Europe,quære. It is estimated that between 1856 and 1859, 78,817 Chinese emigrated to the United States. In Australia, to deter them from immigration, a tax of £10 per capita has been imposed on their entry into the country. (Fawcett, Manual, 107.)
[262a-9]Of the East Indian coolies who had gone to Demarara, 469 returned in September, 1869, after having saved in five years, £11.235. (Appun, Unter den Troppen, II, 34).
[262a-10]The Grisons had, during the 17th century, accustomed themselves to living some time in the Venetian territory as shoemakers, 1,000 at a time. The blow was all the more severe when Venice, in 1766, expelled all the families. Since that time most of the Grison confectionaries in the principal cities of Europe have had their origin. (Röder und Tcharner, C. Graudbundten, I, 56.) The practice of engaging mercenaries as troops was of great assistance, especially in the interior of Switzerland. During the war of 1690 ff., there were nearly 36,000 Swiss hirelings in the French army. Shortly before 1789, even during the period of peace in France, Italy, Spain and Holland, their number may be estimated to have been at least 30,000. (Meyer v. Knonau, Gesch. der Schweiz. Eidgenossenschaft, II, 104, 464.) No wonder, therefore, that the cessation of the Swiss guards caused a frightful crisis. Expulsion of the Tessinians from Lombardy, 1853.
SECTION CCLXIII.
CONCLUSION.
That the economy of no nation can continue to growad infinitumis, in general, as easy to believe[263-1]as it is difficult to point out with a specification of particulars what are the limits which cannot be exceeded. This would be possible firstin the case of agriculture. Here there are points beyond which every man practically versed in the art can see, that an increase of the gross product must be attended by an absolute decrease in the net product.[263-2]But even supposing that apeople had reached this point in their entire agriculture, they might still carry on industries, commerce, perform personal services for other nations, and obtain remuneration therefor in the means of subsistence and manufactured articles. If our nation has once entered on this path, it is evident that every improvement of its industry, every advance made by foreign countries in the production of raw material, manufactures and the consumption of services must result in a growth of our economy. David Hume was of opinion that industrial preponderance was in a necessary and continual state of transition from one country to another. A very highly developed state of industry made a country rich in money but enhanced the price of the means of subsistence, and the rate of wages; until finally it became impossible for it to compete in the markets of the world with cheaper countries, and industry, in consequence, emigrated to these.[263-3]But it is easy to see how all such limits are extended by the modern improvements in transportation, and the consequent facilitation of importation; and how much the remedy mentioned in § 198 has gained in importance by the modern advances made in machinery and the preponderance in so many respects of machine over hand labor.[263-4]
But here it is necessary to distinguish between the "applied" and only practical political economy, and "pure political economy." (§ 217.) A development thus continued would be attended with great difficulty even if the whole world constituted one great empire. We need only mention Austria, where some provinces have remained in a very backward, almost medieval condition, while others have for a long time manifested the symptoms of over-population. How much more in different states. An uncivilized nation will frequently not care to increase its consumption of our manufactures, if to do so it becomes necessary to carry on its agriculture more industriously. Another nation that has already tasted of the fruit of the tree of economic knowledge may not be satisfied with the mere production of raw material forever. In time it may want to carry on commerce and industry itself, and hence consider the breaking of its commercial course with us as a species of emancipation from us. And, further, how if other highly cultivated nations should compete with us in the markets of countries which produce merely raw material? if such rivals should wage war in which each party should harm his adversary for the mere love of doing harm, and not unfrequently in opposition to its own economic interests? I know of no period the development of which has not been attended by such disturbances, and hence they cannot be said to be entirely unnatural.[263-5]
And even at home and among highly civilized nations, there are wont to be many obstacles to advancement on this road of progress. Every great economic change is connected as cause and effect, with a variety of political, social and other reformations which are never accomplished without great hardship and hesitation.[263-6]Where the division of labor has been developed to any extent, the formerly existing circumstances which must be surrendered for the sake of progress are generally synonymous with the interests of some class. This class opposes the improvement, and a struggle becomes necessary to carry it out. But under certain circumstances, a long delay in effecting a necessary reform may paralyse or poison the minds of the people to such an extent that they may afterwards have neither the will nor the power to successfully advance. This is the most important exception to the rule laid down in § 24. The happier the ethnographic and social composition of a people, the better the national spirit, the more skillful the form of its constitution, the less frequently will it happen.[263-7]All this is true especially of over-population and the plethora[263-8]of capital which so easily injure the morality of a people. New inventions also, by means of which the limits of the possibility of production may be incalculably extended canbe expected only from nations where there is no intellectual decline.[263-9]
[263-1]There are, indeed, different opinions on this matter, and they were preponderant during the second half of the eighteenth century. CompareCondorcet, Tableau historique,[TN 120]des Progrès de l'Esprit humain, especially Epoque X, in which he treats of future progress. Nevertheless, he obscurely alludes (Œuvres, VIII, 350) to a time when no further increase of population should take place.Malthus, Principle of Population, III, ch. 1, thoroughly demonstrates that in regard to the great prolongation of human life which he foresaw, the idea of the indefinite and that of the infinite were confounded with each other.
In that young and vigorous country, the United States of America, we find a popular school which, to say the least, hints at the principle of infinite growth. Thus, for instance,Peshine Smith(Manual of Political Economy, New York, 1853) teaches that the means of subsistence consumed at the place of production are not destroyed, but may return just as much to the soil in the form of manure as they had previously drawn from it (ch. 1). Capital has a tendency to increase more rapidly than population (ch. 6). The rate of wages has a tendency to increase with the increase of population (ch. 5). Mechanical progress increases the value of human labor and causes that of capital to decline relatively (ch. 3). He reverses, withCarey, Ricardo's law of rent (ch. 2).
Carey, also, relying on the assumption that more fertile land is brought under cultivation as civilization advances, allows us to see no limits whatever to this growth. (Past, Present and Future, ch. 3.) Still more clearly is the principle of unlimited and continually accelerated growth laid down in his Principles of Social Science, I, 270.Careyillustrates this principle by means of the example of the continually accelerated motion of a falling body, without noticing the practicalad absurdum deductioinvolved in it, that at the end of the thousandth second a falling body reaches a velocity of 1,000,000 feet. (loc. cit., 204.) But even in England, at present, we find such thoughts at times.Banfield, for instance, can scarcely understand how the relative rates of wages, interest and rent can decrease, except by an increase of their absolute amounts. See his Organization of Industry, passim. And sov. Prittwitzentertains the most rosy-colored hopes. He has no doubt that all governments which are still bad will see the error of their ways and correct them. (Kunst reich zu werden, 79.)
The growth of capital and even of human wealth in general is capable of indefinite increase (81). The rate of interest would sink almost to zero if so much capital were accumulated that no "undertakers" could be found who care to use it (305). Large farming will entirely cease in the future (307), and when the system of railroads is entirely completed, the whole earth will present the appearance of one immense park (29). He would allay all fear concerning the exhaustion of combustible material by pointing out the possibility consequent upon improved means of communication, that a great many of the inhabitants of the colder regions of the earth might migrate in winter to a warmer climate (21). At the same time, artesian wells might be made to bring to the surface the internal heat of the earth, or metallic plates connected with the wings of a windmill, might be made to generate heat by their friction on one another (22). See the same author's Andeutungen über künftige Fortschritte und die Gränz en der Civilization, 21 Aufl., 1855.