Chapter CXXIV: 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 themselves with 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]

[Footnote 262-1: Many of the most competent thinkers have
designated such emigration as the only remedy for the
over-population of Ireland. Compare _Torrens_, The Budget,
passim; _J. S. Mill_, Principles, II, ch. 10; Edinburg Rev.,
January, 1850. _Lord Palmerston_ retained 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.)]

[Footnote 262-2: It is an interesting thought of _R. 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 the _ver sacrum_. Similarly
in many cases of Greek emigration, by the worship of Apollo:
Compare _W. H. Roscher_, Apollon und Mars (1873), 82 ff.]