[261-5] Similar provisions in Hamburg, June 3, 1850, revised February 26, 1855; in France, January 15, 1855; in the United States of America, March 2, 1855. Compare Hübner, Statistisches Jahrbuch, 1856, 289 ff. However, there were serious complaints, a short time since, concerning German emigrant transportation, especially of the treatment of women: Novara-Reise, III, 49 ff. Ausland, 1863, No. 8. One of the principal wants is that emigration agents should be held responsible for detaining their clients a long time and at a heavy expense, in places of embarkation.
[261-6] Compare McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary, v. Colonies, 9 George, IV., ch. 21. The law of June 30, 1852, carries solicitude for the lot of emigrants very far. It embraces 91 articles and 11 additions. Everything is most minutely provided for, even the form of the passage ticket. The old law of 1803, drawn up in accordance with the advice of the Scotch Highland Society, was apparently devised in the interest of the emigrants; but it contained a multitude of minute requirements suggested by a desire on the part of the advisers to restrict emigration. Hence it was, in practice, by consent of both parties, always evaded. Compare Lord Selkirk, Observations on the present State of the Highlands of Scotland, with a View of the Causes and probable Consequences of Emigration (1805). Edinburgh R., December, 1826, 61; January, 1828.
EMIGRATION AND PAUPERISM.
As a very rare exception, an emigration suddenly undertaken, well directed and on a very large scale, may be made to constitute the efficient means preparatory to the abolition of pauperism. Where, for instance, by reason of the subdivision of the land into extremely small parcels, farming on a diminutive scale has come to preponderate; where the popular home-industries have been reduced to a miserable condition by the immoderate competition of great foreign manufacturers and machinery, the hopelessness of the situation consists principally in this: that every improvement made must be preceded by a concentration of the forces of labor, and their combination with the powers of capital; which for the moment renders a great number of those who have been laborers hitherto entirely superfluous. That is, to raise the level of the whole public economy and provide a decent livelihood for 10,000 men, it would be necessary to condemn another 10,000 to death from starvation! Most political doctors recoil at the thought of this transition-crisis. They content themselves with palliatives which, in the end, cost much and afford no help. The simplest remedy here would evidently be to cause those workmen who have become superfluous to emigrate at the expense of the state. Next, the necessary economic reforms should be carried out at home and the return of the evil prevented by rigid legislation. The more sudden this emigration is, the nearer it comes to taking place, so to speak, all at once, the less possible it is that the increase of population should keep even pace with it. The condition of the proletarians who remained at home could not fail to have a favorable influence in this respect; for nothing leads men so much into contracting reckless marriages as the total absence of any prospect of amelioration of their condition in the future.[262-1] [262-2]
[262-1] Many of the most competent thinkers have designated such emigration as the only remedy for the over-population of Ireland. Compare Torrens, The Budget, passim; J. S. Mill, Principles, II, ch. 10; Edinburg Rev., January, 1850. Lord Palmerston retained the wealthiest farmers on his estates who were intending to emigrate, by causing the poor ones to emigrate at his own expense. The independent emigration of the Irish at their own expense which has been going on for some years, might become an incalculable gain to the English nation. By the poor law, 4 and 5 William IV., c. 76, the English parishes are authorized, with the approval of the central poor board, to assist emigration to the extent of £10 per capita. Between 1849 and 1853, they assisted 1,826 poor persons on an average per annum, who received for that purpose £10,352. (Kries, Engl. Armenpflege, 1863, 30.)
[262-2] It is an interesting thought of R. von Mokl, Polizeiwissenschaft, I, 130, that real over-population, when no one was willing to emigrate of his own accord, might be remedied by a species of emigration-conscription of young adults by the drawing of lots, the right of substitution, etc. The ancient Italians sometimes realized this idea by the ver sacrum. Similarly in many cases of Greek emigration, by the worship of Apollo:[TN 117] Compare W. H. Roscher, Apollon und Mars (1873), 82 ff.
TEMPORARY EMIGRATION.
Besides definitive emigration, temporary emigration deserves special consideration. If the wages of labor are much lower in one locality than in another which is easily accessible,[262a-1] the workmen of the former place resolve much more readily on periodical migrations thither than on permanent settlements in the place. It is especially the difficult work of harvesting, where farmers are pressed for time,[262a-2] and that of house-building,[262a-3] which are undertaken by these birds of passage; and mountainous regions, with their limited agriculture, their late crops and their longing look into the far-off which is found united with a deep-rooted attachment to home, are the places whence they come.[262a-4] When their home is distinguished in certain branches of labor, they are wont to carry these with them abroad, and in such case their sojourn away from home is generally longer.[262a-5] The shorter and the more vagabond-like their migration, the less apt is it to be an economic blessing to the wanderers themselves.[262a-6] There must necessarily result, as a consequence, a species of equalization between the rates of wages in the country receiving and the country furnishing them.[262a-7] This may be a great national misfortune for the latter, inasmuch as its working class may thus be forced to a lower standard of life, and all their providence and self-control in the founding of a family be made fruitless by the arrival of less capable foreigners.[262a-8] The hatred existing among the members of a higher class for parvenus from a lower corresponds in this respect to the mutual hatred of two countries for the natives of the other, (v. Mangoldt.) Considered from the point of view of the country furnishing these migratory classes, temporary emigration has this advantage over definitive emigration, that the persons leaving the country always maintain their economic connection with their home.[262a-9] The most striking example of this is afforded by those merchants, ship-owners, etc. who are, so to speak, pioneers in foreign markets for Switzerland and Bremen. Only there is always danger of a crisis when the usual flow is suddenly checked.[262a-10]