TIIE RIGHT USE OF EMIGRATION [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—I trust that my interest as an American in England's welfare will be accepted as an excuse for commenting upon one of the expedients often brought forward as a remedy for unsatisfactory conditions in England, namely, emigration. It is very easy to mistake relief of the individual for relief of the many ; but remedy of the general situation is the real objective. It is necessary also to consider whether emigration has accomplished anything in the way of relieving over- population during years when there was a far greater chance of its accomplishing relief than can possibly exist at present.
Students who have given careful study to this subject are, I believe, very nearly unanimous in the conclusion that in order to give relief, emigration from a congested area must be brought about rapidly and must be taken from reason- ably isolated districts. It must be taken from those districts in such quantity that it will remove something like a third of the people, so BS to change radically, and at once, the standard of living of those who remain. Without this, emigration has no effect whatever in giving relief to over- population, but often serves merely to spread a diseased social condition to new regions, as America knows ta its cost. If emigrants are drawn gradually from the area of congestion,' the power of multiplication that has created over-population' fills all the gaps and leaves things practically as before. It has no more effect upon those who remain than was create'df in the last century by the departure for America of a few, pairs of house sparrows and starlings, or by the more recent subtraction of a few grey squirrels from America for the expected benefit of England.
During the last century there were great waste spaces in the world to be taken up, where white people could live and- raise children. There was free emigration of some thirty millions, but during that very time the population of Europe and of Britain bounded upward as never before. The re- maining space still unoccupied is small by comparison, and there is no chance whatever at present of really relieving any congested country by emigration.
It is surely a wrong to England to urge as a remedy some- thing that has so conclusively been shown to be no remedy. Emigration may be needed to help other regions, or to strengthen the Empire ; although it is worth considering whether those who are the most likely to succeed on the few remaining frontiers may not be the very ones most needed on the frontiers of thought and action at home. These are to be the main frontiers of the future. In any event, emigration should stand on its real merits and should not be urged as a remedy for existing over-population, when it
is no remedy.—I am, Sir, &c., R. M. BRADLEY. 60 State Street, Boston.
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