The most important causes of emigration are love of adventure, political or religious difficulties, and economic pressure. Forced emigration, in the shape of transportation, was formerly of some importance, especially in the case of America and Australia, but is now negligible; and before the European War, emigration from Russia was chiefly for political or religious reasons. To-day economic forces are the most powerful. The direction of the flow of emigration is partly determined by its causes. When these are political or religious, emigrants go where they expect to find freedom, as with the Huguenots in the seventeenth century. When economic forces are at work, emigration takes place towards newer and less developed countries, where pressure on the means of subsistence is less marked than elsewhere. Assistance given to emigrants, such as grants of land, loans of capital, and passages at reduced rates also has an influence, likewise the regulations of the countries concerned regarding emigration and immigration. In Australia and the United States, regulations forbidding the entrance of Yellow races have checked the movement of Chinese and Japanese to those countries; and the Government of India discourages emigration save under adequate safeguard for proper pay and treatment.
The results of emigration vary with the economic and other circumstances of the countries concerned. The country from which the movement takes place loses intellectual and physical labour power which the other country gains; but may benefit by relief given to a congested labour market. This was the case with the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, and the United Kingdom in the early nineteenth century. The general tendency is for emigration to benefit the world as a whole by enabling labour to go where it can be most productively employed. This increases world production, opens up new markets, and so indirectly benefits the older countries. Sometimes, however, emigration may cause an industry merely to be transferred from one country to another, as in the case of the fourteenth-century Flemish emigration to England. The importance of these results of emigration in any particular case depends on the class of people who emigrate,
and on the volume of emigration. Deportation of criminals obviously benefited only the deporting country. Emigration on political or religious grounds has frequently deprived one country of, and given to another, a vigorous and industrious stock, as in the case of the French Huguenots driven from France to England in the late seventeenth century by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Economic pressure tends to send abroad agricultural and other unskilled labour. The majority of emigrants from Great Britain in the nineteenth century belonged to this class. Youth and adaptability, however, are more important qualities for an emigrant than a high level of skill in any trade; and it is probable, therefore, that on the whole emigration has relieved Europe of labour whose supply was in excess of the demand for it, and has never given newer countries the material they require. The political consequences of emigration may also be important. Some writers claim that it has assisted the spread of democracy. Whether this is an advantage is a matter for individual judgment. But emigration may certainly have much influence in creating and maintaining friendly relations between States; or, as shown by Irish influence in the United States, it may embitter the feeling between them.—Bibliography: Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration; S. C. Johnson, History of Emigration from the United Kingdom to North America, 1763-1912.
Émigrés (ā-mi-grās), a name given more particularly to those persons who left France during the Revolution of 1789. At the head of these emigrants stood the royal princes of Condé, Provence, and Artois, the first of whom collected a part of the fugitives to co-operate with the allied armies in Germany for the restoration of the monarchy. At Coblentz a particular court of justice was established to settle causes relating to the French émigrés. The corps of Condé was finally taken into the Russian service, and was disbanded in the Russian-Austrian campaign of 1799. When Napoleon became emperor he granted permission to all but a few of the emigrants to return to their country; but many declined to return until after his downfall. By the Charter of 1814 they were shut out from the recovery of their estates and privileges; and though, by a law of 27th April, 1825, some compensation was decreed to them, the grant was withdrawn again after the July revolution.
Emilian Provinces, a term applied to certain Italian provinces annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia in 1860. They comprised the northern part of the States of the Church (Romagna) and the Duchies of Modena and Parma.
Em´inence, an honorary title formerly applied to the Emperor and higher officials of the Empire, but restricted in 1630 by Pope Urban VIII to cardinals. Up to that time they had been called illustrissimi and reverendissimi.
Emir (em´ēr), the title given by Mohammedans to independent chiefs or princes, Amir or Ameer being the same word (the Amir of Afghanistan). When associated with other words it may designate various dignitaries. Thus the caliphs styled themselves Emir-al-Mumenin, Prince of the Faithful; Emir-al-Omrah, Prince of Princes, was the title of governors of certain provinces. The title is also given in Turkey to all the real or supposed descendants of Mohammed, through his daughter Fatimah.
Emmerich (em´e-rih), a town, Rhenish Prussia, on the right bank of the Rhine, 5 miles N.E. of Cleves. It joined the Hanseatic League in 1407. It carries on an active trade chiefly with Holland. Pop. 13,418.
Em´met, Robert, an Irish rebel, born at Cork in 1778. He was expelled from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1798, on the ground of exciting disaffection and rebellion, and having become an object of suspicion to the Government, quitted Ireland. He returned there on the repeal of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and became a member of the Society of United Irishmen for the establishment of the independence of Ireland. In July, 1803, he was the ringleader in the foolish rebellion in which Lord Kilwarden and others perished. He was arrested a few days afterwards, tried, and executed. His fate excited special interest from his attachment to Sarah Curran, daughter of the celebrated barrister. Their sad fates were commemorated by his college friend, Moore, in Oh, Breathe Not his Name, and She is Far from the Land where her Young Hero Sleeps.
Emotion, a term variously used by psychologists; sometimes as one of the divisions of feeling, the other being sensation; sometimes as opposed to feeling when the latter is identified with sensation, and sometimes as distinct from both sensation and feeling, when the last term is rigidly confined to the sense of pleasure or pain. In any of these uses, however, emotions are distinguished from sensations in that sensations are primary forms of consciousness arising by external excitation, are comparatively simple and immediately presentative phenomena, and are definite in character and capable of localization; while emotions are secondary or derived forms of consciousness, are complex and representative, and are vague and diffused. Sensations are said to be 'peripherally initiated', while emotions are centrally initiated. When, in addition to its being distinguished from sensation, it is also distinguished from feeling, emotion is applied to the whole physical condition accompanying the sense of pleasure or pain (feeling). The muscles of the body and