The Emigration returns of last year showed that England exported
300,000 persons, 80,000 of whom were foreigners, and all intend to settle in some English-speaking country, perhaps the most astounding testimony to the value of the institutions established by Englishmen and Americans ever given to the world. We have scarcely seen the beginning of this process, which in Germany, England, Denmark, and Holland is already checking the increase of population, and may, when knowledge has been sufficiently increased, gradually bring it down to the proportions of 1815. The Times says there is_ nothing to fear, as we shall rapidly fill up again, and as wages rise that may be partly true ; but there remains, nevertheless, one cause of uneasiness. Is not a quality going out of ma with this emigration,—the quality of energy? Emigrants, as a rule, are more energetic and enter- prising than those they leave behind, and it is not quite so certain that the residuum is the same as the whole. The Danes were mighty colonists, and where are they ?—while the very life-blood of Spain seems to have gone out of her with the emigration to South America, which lasted 200 years, and is still extensive, though the result has been injured by the carelessness of Spaniards about an admixture of blood.
Previous page
