Negro Migration during the War. By Emmet J. Scott. (New
York : Oxford University Press ; and H. Milford.)—This volume of the " Preliminary Economic Studies of the War " issued by the_ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace deals with a remarkable American movement of which little has been heard in England, except in connexion with race riots in Chicago and other Northern cities. Dr. Scott states that between 1914 and 1917 " more than 400,000 negroes suddenly moved North," and he goes on to explain the causes and to describe the results of this phenomenon which has occasioned anxiety not less in the North than in the South. Until the war began, the vast majority of the American negroes, ten millions in number, had remained in the Southern States. The new munition factories executing orders for the Allies found that labour was scarce in the North, owing to the departure of reservists for Europe. The factory-owners therefore imported negroes from the South, where there was a temporary depression among the cotton- growers. The migrants encouraged their friends and relatives to follow them, and the movement rapidly assumed large pro- portions, until it " depopulated entire communities " in the Southern States. Dr. Scott declares that the negroes were tempted not only by the higher wages offered them in the North, but also by the prospect of escape from the restrictions imposed on them in the South—restrictions which are less palatable to the younger generation than to their parents who were born before or soon after the Civil War. The author says that the Southern States, while rejoicing in the prospect that the whites will soon outnumber the blacks, have begun to improve the status of the negro whose value as a labourer they now realize more fully. On the other hand, the rapid increase of the negro population has created new problems in regard to housing, wages, and so on, for the Northern States. Dr. Scott has collected much evidence—which is generally favourable—as to the industrial capacity of the negro.
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