THE TRUTH ABOUT EMIGRATION. T HE great and steady rush of
Europe towards America, Australia, and South Africa which dis- tinguished the second half of the last century has pro- duced, amidst much undeniable good, one unfortunate result. It has rendered men's judgment upon the conse- quences of emigration far too hasty and dogmatic. The rush has produced certain effects so striking in their appeal to political imagination that most observers —probably all, except the Staffs of the great conscript armies—pronounce emigration absolutely good ; indeed, a probable panacea for all the social evils of Europe. That is not true. Emigration has two sets of effects—those upon the countries which receive the immigrants, and those upon the countries which send them forth—and these two must be carefully distinguished. The former may be pronounced on the whole almost entirely beneficial. The new countries which have fallen in one way or another into European hands require population, and a rush of immigrants from Europe increases the speed of their natural growth without any visible countervailing evil. The immigrants supply labour, they pay taxes, they pro- duce wealth, and in a generation or two they assimilate themselves to the population among whom they settle. (The power of absorption is often said to be a peculiar prerogative of the Anglo-Saxon, and no doubt he possesses it in a high degree, but he has not absorbed the French- Canadian, while the Spaniard of Argentina turns myriads of Italian immigrants into passable Spaniards with posi- tively amazing rapidity.) A great immigration makes a temperate colony grow strong very quickly ; and it is probably good that it should grow strong quickly, and by mastering natural difficulties with apparent ease, become saturated with that sanguineness which develops civil courage. This spirit of hopefulness, this conviction that all will go right and that natural obstacles do not matter, is the essential note of the American character, and is largely due to immigration, which, for instance, during the Civil War prevented, for all the dreadful slaughter, any permanent loss to the Union in its grand resource,—working men. The forest is cleared, cities rise when required, food becomes abundant, and man, in short, ceases to be afraid of Nature as he is in Asia, and grows self-confident and enterprising.. There is no proof that national character is in any way permanently impaired, though single cities may seem to be for a time, while assimilation is going on, partially demoralised, and no reasonable ground for asserting that the interbreeding of many white races produces an inferior species. The evidence, in fact, derivable from the history of great peoples, like the British, the French, the Russians, and the Americans, points the other way. We may fairly, therefore, we think, believe that the result of immigration to the receiving countries, especially while they are very new, is on the whole distinctly good.
The effect of the process upon the exporting countries is by no means so certain. In the first place, the great argument, the one which is in all politicians' mouths and in all newspapers, the relief of congestion, is probably unfounded. It may be true about Ireland, though even there it is denied or questioned by men who cannot all be fools, and it is probably true about Portugal, where emigration keeps the population stationary ; but it is certainly not true of many countries where emigration is a, constant practice. In Great Britain, Germany, and Italy emigration, though the depth of the stream varies from year to year, goes on ceaselessly, and so does the growth of the population, the truth seeming to be that every man who emigrates leaves some place or work or chance open which is immediately filled by a newly married couple, who would not have married if the emigrant had remained. The world, it is true, knows little of the actual laws of population, or why a race which did not multiply in the time of Elizabeth should multiply so fast in that of Victoria; but still the assertion that emigration is a great relief is, in the greater countries, demonstrably unfounded. There stands the fact, visible in every statist's reports, that the nations are not relieved. Nor must we forget that emigration, if in one way a useful drain, is a drain of our best material. It is not the weaklings, or the timid, or the unenterprising who take to emigration. It was an American Senator who testified many years ago before a British Committee that Scotch immigrants were the worst in the world for the receiving country, because in twelve months they all became employers ; and German bureaucrats detest those emigrants who return because they are so vigorous and independent. The weeding process adopted in America and Australia is intended to keep out Anarchists, paupers, and people imported. under contract, and therefore dangerous to Trade-Unions, and is no proof that immi- grants generally are " undesirables." There is one in- stance at least in history in which emigration helped to ruin the character of a people. The settlement of Spanish America drew away from Spain her most vigorous children, all who were thirsting for wider opportunities, all the dis- contented who at home might have improved things, and a quite singular proportion of the industrious and the strong. It is probable that the emigration to America, supposed on the modern theory to be purely good, did as much to empty Spain of capacity as the expulsion of the Moors. Nor is it to be entirely overlooked. that the great body of emigrants are agriculturists, or citizens who might have been tempted back to the land, while from every district in emigrating countries there comes up a sharp cry that agriculture is fettered. or rendered impossible by want of hands. No doubt the main cause of that evil is the swarming to the cities, where, if there is much misery and more foul air, there are also many chances ; but trans- marine emigration helps to swell that depopulation of the fields, and is in Sweden even its main cause. And finally, it is right to remember that the mass of emigrants are men, and that the great surplus of women left behind is, at all events, not beneficial to a civilisation under which women without support are exposed to many dangers, yet
in which when the women work hard they bring the men's wages down.
Would we, then, discourage emigration ? Not at all. We know far too little of the future to make it either wise or right to interfere with the great, it would almost seem the instinctive, movements of humanity from one place to another. The modern world exists because of a vast im- migration of white Asiatics into Europe, and the present movement may be as beneficial as theirs, and is certainly much less destructive. But we would pitch talk about it on a lower key, and abandon altogether the argument that in conquering tropical regions such as those of Africa north of the Zambesi we are " providing the possibility of homes for our surplus population." There is room enough for them and to spare in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and South America. It may be true that white men can work in safety in very warm regions ; we think it is true after a short acclimatisation, for Spaniards do work in Cuba, Americans in Florida, and Spaniards again in Central America ; but it is better to fill up the temperate and accessible regions first. The climate may not injure European labourers, but close contact with dark races will. The reasons for entering the black lands are quite strong enough without inventing one which is only plausible at first bight. It is quite certain that—so long as they are not Belgians—Europeans will secure to the dark populations more peaceful and happier lives, and quite possible that after years of wasted energy trade with them may repay all our efforts. It is, however, guides and protectors who will do them good, not competing ploughmen.
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