[256-5] It is estimated that Frederick William I. spent 5,000,000 thalers in establishing colonists. Up to 1728, 20,000 new families were received into Prussia alone. Stenzel, Preuss. Gesch. III, 412 ff. Frederick the Great endeavored above all to retain in the country the strangers who came there periodically. Thus, the harvesters of Vogtland, in the neighborhood of Magdeburg, and the Vogtland masons in the suburbs of the capital (1752). Compare v. Lamotte Abhandlungen, 1793, 160 ff. He is said to have settled 42,600 families, mostly foreigners, in 539 villas and hamlets. Besides, the population of Prussia, between 1823 and 1840, increased by 751,749 immigrants, without any positive favors shown them (Hoffmann, Kleine Schriften, 5 ff.), and the greater part of these were not very poor.
[256-6] In antiquity, nothing so much contributed to the rise of Athens and Rome as their reception of noble refugees during its earlier periods.
[256-7] In Russia, the Emperor Alexander, in 1803, promised the colonists a full release from taxation during ten years, a reduction of taxation for ten more, and freedom from civil and military service for all time; besides 60 dessatines of land per family gratis, an advance of 300 rubles for housebuilding, etc. and money to enable them to maintain themselves until their first harvest. The provision relating to Poland (1833) was much less favorable: importation of movable property free of duty, freedom from military duty and from taxation for six years, and perpetual quit rents (Erbzinsgüter) to agriculturists who owned a certain amount of capital. Brazil promised immigrants, in 1820, land and ten years' freedom from taxation. Compare Jahn, Beiträge, z. Einwanderung und Kolonisation in Br. (1874), 37 ff. Hungary, in 1723, accorded settlers freedom from taxation for six years and artisans for fifteen years. (Mailath, Oesterreichische Gesch., IV, 525.) The ordinance of 1858 affords too little security for non-Catholics and is not adapted to farmers, but only to purchasers.
[256-8] Many of Frederick the Great's colonists turned out very badly. They were attracted only by the premiums offered, and they became dissolute after they had consumed them. Many of them thought that they were to be of use only by giving children to the state (Meissner, Leben des Herrn v. Brenkenhof, 1782), and that the land donated them was to be cultivated by others at the expense of the state! Dohm mentions villages of colonists which had to a great extent changed hands four times in 20 years. Whether the king would not have better attained his object had he employed the younger sons of Prussian peasants as colonists, quære. (Dohm, Denkwürdigkeiten, IV, 390 ff.) Even Süssmilch says: "A native subject is, in most cases and for most purposes, better than two colonists." (Göttl. Ordnung, I, 14, 275.) Compare the work: Wie dem Bauernstande Freiheit und Eigenthum verschafft werden könne, 1769, 16. Every family of colonists in South and new East Prussia is said to have cost the state 1,500 thalers. (Weber, Lehrbuch der polit. Oekonomie, 1806, II, 172); but according to Büsching (Beiträge z. Regierungsgeschichte Friedrichs,[TN 109] II, 239), only 400 thalers. J. Möser is strongly opposed to the encouragement of immigration by direct appeals to it. (P. Ph., I, 60.) According to Bülau, Staatswirthschaftslehre, 24, only those immigrants are welcome who are attracted to the country by the whole character of its national institutions and circumstances. It is a different matter when, for instance, the government in New South Wales permits the colonists, by the payment of very moderate contributions, to have their workmen, friends and relations come after them from England in ships owned by the government. Between 1832 and 1858, £1,700,000 were paid out for such transportation. (Novara-Reise, III, 53.)
[256-9] Dutch Remonstrants since 1619 in Schleswig; Huguenots established since 1685, in Prussia, to the number of about 11,000; Waldenses in Prussia since 1686; natives of Salzburg[TN 110] and of the Palatinate in Prussia. For a state which is the representative of a religious or political principle, it may be a matter of honor, and then certainly useful, to afford an asylum to persons, adherents of that principle.
[256-10] On the German colonists whom Olavides settled in Spain, in 1768 etc., see Schlözer's Briefwechsel, 1779, IV, 587 ff. See adv.: Ueber Sitten, Temperament etc., Spaniens von einem reisenden Beobachter in den J., 1777 und[TN 111] 1778, Leipzig, 1781, p. 260, ff.
[256-11] Canale Crimea, III, 346 ff. Karamsin, Russ. Geschichte, VIII, 97, 424.
[256-12] Ordinance of 1721. Compare Wolf's Vernünftige Gedanken, § 483, who at that time highly disapproved of such compulsion. Quite the reverse, the Prussian Landrecht, II, Tit. 17, § 133 ff. On the other hand, in Spires,[TN 112] in 1765 and 1784, persons of good conduct, good workmen and others of sufficient means, were forbidden to emigrate. Prohibition under pain of death, in Spanish Milan; Novæ Constitut., 29, 145. The work: Les Intérêts de la France maletendus (1752), 258, advocates the prohibition of emigration as a species of les majesté.
[256-13] Beccaria, Dei Delitti e delle Pene, 1765, cap. 52. Similarly, Mirabeau, in his congratulatory letter to Fred. Wil. II., and Benjamin Franklin, On a proposed Act for preventing Emigration: Works, IV, 458 ff. The Dutch were very early advocates of freedom of emigration. Compare U. Huber, De Jure Civit., 1672, II, 4; Pufendorff, Jus. Natur. (1672), VIII, 11. Theorizers otherwise the most opposite in their views are here agreed. Jeremy Bentham says that properly speaking a prohibition against emigration should begin with the words: We, who do not understand the art of making our subjects happy; in consideration that if we should allow them to take flight, they would all betake themselves to strange and better governed countries, etc. Des Récompenses et des Peines, II, 310. But also K. L. v. Haller, Restauration der Staatswissenschaft, I, 429 ff., 508, demands most strenuously that there should be freedom of emigration, for the reason that every man, without prejudice to any one else, might seek the state constitution which he wanted, J. Tucker entirely approved the English law prohibiting the emigration of workmen. Compare also J. Bodin, De Republ., I, 6.
[256-14] English prohibition of emigration under Charles I., 1637. Rymer, Fœdera XX, 143. The story that Cromwell and Hampden were thus detained in the country may be false, however. (Bancroft, History of the United States, I, 445.) Earlier prohibition of emigration of the Norwegian king in relation to Iceland. (Schlegel, Grâgas, Comment Crit. p. XV.) In ancient Greece, the restriction of emigration by foreign powers contributed very largely to the democratization of the mother country. Something similar is impending over Germany if the present emigration towards North America should be much weakened by a change of circumstances there.