Principles of Political Economy Part 42

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 cla.s.s 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 ma.s.s of the people 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 to be supposed that men who are really useless at home should be of any service in the colonies.

How violently have not English colonies opposed the advent of settlers from the poorhouses of the mother country. The cla.s.ses 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 weaker succ.u.mb 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 the _per capita_ amount 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 ma.s.s of the population remaining at home would become poorer in capital and in vigorous men,[259-8] and richer in the comparatively needy. The comfortless contrast between colossal wealth and beggarly want could only be thereby increased, since it is almost exclusively the lower middle cla.s.s who emigrate to agricultural colonies. The over-rich, as a rule, will not, and proletarians can not, go thither.[259-9] [259-10]

[Footnote 259-1: Compare _R. Mohl_, in the Tubinger Zeitschrift fur Staatswissenschaft, 1847, 320 ff.; _Roscher_, Nationalokonomische Ansichten uber 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. Frobel_, Die Deutsche Auswanderung und ihre Kulturhistorische Bedeutung, 1858.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 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. (_Gortz_, Reise, 88.)]

[Footnote 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, const.i.tuted 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.)]

[Footnote 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 to _Bromwell_ and _Hubner_) 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 to _Porter_, 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,

================================ _in_ | _Persons._ -------------------+------------ 1847, | 258,000 1848, | 248,000 1849, | 299,000 1850, | 280,000 1852, (maxim.) | 368,000 1853, | 329,000 1855, | 176,000 1857, | 212,000 1858-60, (average)| 96,000 1862, | 121,000 1863, | 223,000 1865, | 181,000 1867, | 105,161 1870, | 202,511 1871, | 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 to _Hubner's_ Jahrb. 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, in

==================================== _in_ | _At least._ -------------------+-----------++--- 1844, | 43,000 1845, | 67,000 1846,- | 94,000 1847, | 109,000 1848,- | 81,000 1849, | 89,000 1850,- | 82,000 1851, | 112,000 1852, | 162,000 1853, | 156,000 1854, (maxim.) | 250,000 1855. | 81,000 1856. | 98,000 1857, | 115,000 1858-61, (average)| 4,620 1866, | 137,000 1867, | 151,000 | By Hamburg and | Bremen alone-- | 1867-71, (average)|33,355 & 48,296 1872, |57,621 & 66,919 1873, |51,432 & 48,608 1874, |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. (_Wappaus_, Bevolkerungsstatistik, 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 Holland.

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 circ.u.mstance that, for instance, in Prussia, it is precisely the most densely populated districts to which immigration is largest. Compare _v.

Viebahn_, Zollverein. Statist, II, 242.

According to _C. 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 countries emigration is as yet insignificant. On the other hand, there were, in 1870, 214,574 native Scandinavians in the United States.]

[Footnote 259-6: While the most active demand for labor, for instance, existed in Australia generally, three government s.h.i.+ps 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.)]

[Footnote 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 pa.s.sage 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. (Beitrage 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 ma.s.s of those emigrating come from successively lower strata of the population. (_Hermann_, Bewegung der Bevolk., 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.)]

[Footnote 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.

(_Ba.s.sewitz-Schumacher_, Comm. Bericht uber die Verhaltnisse der landl. Arbeiterkla.s.sen, 1873.)]

[Footnote 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.) Compare _Hermann_, loc. cit. 28 ff. _Hermann_ also 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.]

[Footnote 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 to _Rumelin_ (Allg. Ztg., December, 1865), the large emigration from Wurttemberg 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 growth of population is made possible.[260-1] England has. .h.i.therto 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 compet.i.tors 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, G.o.d willing, shall yet const.i.tute 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 const.i.tute 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 be danger of their losing the German character and feeling.[260-6] The difficulty of establis.h.i.+ng 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]

[Footnote 260-1: As _Torrens_ shows 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.]

[Footnote 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_| _France._ | _Germany without_ | _Empire._ | | _Austria._ ------------+-------------+-------------+------------------ 1840-41, | $51,000,000 | $24,000,000 | $2,450,000 1849-50, | 85,000,000 | 27,600,000 | 8,780,000 1859-60, | 138,600,000 | 43,200,000 | 18,500,000 ===========================================================

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.)]

[Footnote 260-3: There has. .h.i.therto 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!]

[Footnote 260-4: Compare _Fr. List_, in the D.

Vierteljahrsschrift, 1842, No. IV. _Dieterici_, uber Aus- und Einwanderungen, 1847, 18.]

[Footnote 260-5: No Mosquito-coast!]

[Footnote 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!]

[Footnote 260-7: On emigration to Brazil, see _v. Tschudi's_ report of Oct. 6 to the Swiss parliament, 1860.]

[Footnote 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 by _Frobel_ (loc. cit., 87 ff.) that England and Prussia should together found a German colony in the valley of the La Plata, to which _Wappaus_ rightly objects, that there are few places there in which peasant emigrants would like to acquire land. (Mittel- und Sudamerika, 1866, 1027.)]

[Footnote 260-9: Compare _Wappaus_, 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 a.s.sistance 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 s.h.i.+p-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.