Emigration and Unemployment
[Ai replyfrom Sir Herbert Samuel to Commissioner Lamb's article last week.—En. Spectator.] THE article in the Spectator of last week on the question whether emigration is the best cure for unemploy- ment deals with a matter of great national importance. The writer of the article, Commissioner Lamb of the Salvation Army, is entitled to speak on it with authority ; the devoted work for many years of the organization of which he is one Of the chiefs, in directing and assisting emigrants, commands attention for anything that he may say. But his criticism of the views I expressed, when writing in your columns some weeks ago on the question of unemployment, is not, I submit, convincing.
First let us clear away misunderstanding. I do not 'suggest that emigration from Great Britain to the bominions is au evil. On the contrary it brings, in the inaHority of cases, great advantages, to the individual. There are numbers of people who, having found no niche here, prosper and are happy in the easier conditions over- seas. There are public advantages of the highest value as -well. If there had' been no emigration in the past there would be no British Empire noiv—or, if it existed at all, it would be confined to the tropical zone. I hope it is not arrogant for us to believe that, not only Our own country, but the world at large would have been the poorer.
I have n- 6 quarrel with those opinions. My quarrel is with the easy theory which says, " Here are a million . unemployed , they are being supported, at great cost, by the rest of the population ; the way to dispose of them is to transplant them elsewhere. Here are slums, an admitted evil ; send their inhabitants oversea and the slums - will disappear." Those who propound this solution for our troubles evade any serious thought or effective action for dealing with the industrial and social problems of our time and country..
The theory is based on a series of fallacies. It is assumed, in the first place, that there is an amount of work, more or less fixed, for this country to do. If the population increases there will be more unemployed ; if the population is diminished by emigration there will be fewer unemployed. This may be true in countries which depend solely or mainly upon agriculture, like Ireland in the nineteenth century ; though even in cases such as those, improved methods of cultivation can usually enable a growing population to be maintained. But in an industrial country, such as this, the fallacy is obvious. The development of our resources and of our foreign trade may keep pace with the growth of our population and may exceed_ it. Our task is so to promote our industries—by the enterprise of their managers, by the skill of their workmen, by the friendly co-operation of both classes, by promoting works of national develop- ment, by lightening the burdens of taxation, and by encouraging the free inflow and outflow of commerce— that prosperous employment is provided for a constantly expanding population. Hitherto, in the main, this has been done.. • - In 1905 a scheme of State-aided colonization, pro- pounded by the late Sir William Rider Haggard, was the subject of inquiry by a Committee appointed by -Mr. Alfred Lyttelton as Colonial Secretary. 1, served as a _member of that Committee, and found it necessary to ascertain how far growth of population had, in fact, involved unemployment. I found that, forty years before, the percentage of trade unionists out of work— the only basis for unemployment statistics at that time— had been, on an average of years, 3'6. During the intervening period the population had increased by twelve millions. At the end, the percentage of unemployment did not show an immense expansion on account of that growth ; it was then 8.7.
The second fallacy is to suppose that the million unemployed workers of this month or this year are. the same million men and women as were unemployed last month and last year, and that if they were to be sent overseas, there would be no unemployed next month and next year. With respect to a comparatively small proportion those conditions may apply. Numbers of the miners in Durham and in South Wales are now in that Case. Unhappily there is no opening for any appreciable number of miners in the British Dominions. The Royal Commission on the Coal Industry ascertained that to be the fact, or it would certainly have recommended special measures for their transfer. If the miners, who are likely to prove to be a permanent surplus owing- to the special conditions of the British coal industry, could be settled as agriculturists in Canada or elsewhere, it would be a very great advantage. But this case is exceptional. Working-people who are surplus one month may be, and usually are, in demand the next ; unless . indeed their failure to find work is due to their own deficiencies of physique or of character, in which case they would be unsuitable as immigrants into the Dominions.
The third fallacy is the belief that emigration on a large scale will empty the slums. A family needs other qualificationi for admission into the Dominions besides the fact that it happens to occupy a dwelling which the local authority would be glad to close. The attempt to co-ordinate slum-clearance .with. State-aided 'emigration would prove impossible • in practice. In any event, slums do not merely exist ; they. grow ; they are con- tinually coming into being ; as one area is replaced by better dwellings, another area sinks into slumdom by the deterioration of the property through age and the decline of the neighbourhood. If emigration were the accepted cure in such cases, gradually most of the population of our great towns would have to be removed oversea.
Emigration by all means, when the individual finds he can prosper better elsewhere. The Dominions will grow and the Empire will be the stronger. But the Empire will not keep its strength unless Great • Britain also maintains a great and a growing population— prosperous, well-housed, strong in- their numbers and powerful by their wealth. A sound economic policy at home ; the building of new streets and towns and villages ; the spreading out of crowded populations through better means of transport ; and, underlying it all, a spirit of enterprise in industry, commerce and finance—there, and not in a defeatist policy which thinks that all is already lost and that safety is only to be found in flight— is to be found the-remedy for the industrial difficulties
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