Chapter CXXI: 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 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 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 weaker succumb 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 mass 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 class 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 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.]

[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. (_Görtz_, 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, 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.)]

[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 _Hübner_) 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

================================
_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 _Hübner'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. (_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. 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
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.)]

[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 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.)]

[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.
(_Bassewitz-Schumacher_, Comm. Bericht über die Verhältnisse
der ländl. Arbeiterklassen, 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 _Rümelin_ (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.]