Principles of Political Economy Part 43

a.s.sist them by word and deed.[261-3] The legislation of Bremen is a model in this respect, and has contributed largely to make that port a princ.i.p.al outlet for German emigration.[261-4] The provisions of the laws of October 1, 1832, of July 14, 1854, of July 9, 1866, etc., embrace among others the following: Only a citizen of Bremen, of good repute, and who has given security to the amount of five thousand thalers, shall be ent.i.tled to receive and contract with emigrants for pa.s.sage; to each pa.s.senger shall be allotted a s.p.a.ce of at least twelve square feet of surface and six feet high; provision shall be made for the longest possible time of pa.s.sage; for instance, for thirteen weeks for a voyage northerly from the equator. At the same time, the ship-owner is required to give security that in case of accident to the vessel, disabling it in such a way as to unfit it to continue the journey, he shall return the fare of all pa.s.sengers saved, and pay them an additional sum of from twenty to forty thalers, according to the length of the pa.s.sage, to cover the cost of salvage, to support themselves for the time being, and enable them to continue their journey. The entire matter is controlled by a rigid system of ship-investigation, and is under the superintendence of a board of officers, made up of senators and members of the chamber of commerce.[261-5] Among English provisions[261-6] particularly worthy of imitation is that which requires the government agents in Canada, etc.

to furnish information gratis to emigrants. But to keep their clients from the practice of idling about, so ruinous to themselves, the agents refuse aid to all emigrants who, without sufficient reason, remain over eight days in the harbor.

[Footnote 261-1: Much might be gained if German emigrants to the United States would concentrate themselves in one state, and thus soon make it a German state. For many reasons Wisconsin is best adapted to such a purpose.]

[Footnote 261-2: Provision made to put the colonists in possession of lands well explored and surveyed, to have the preliminary labor performed by persons already acclimated--labor which is the most injurious to health, the clearing of the land, the construction of buildings--purchasing the agricultural implements at wholesale, etc.]

[Footnote 261-3: _v. Gessler_ (Tubinger Zeitschr., 1862, 398 ff.), recommends the establishment of an "asylum" in the neighborhood of the locality where the emigrants are likely to settle. In this asylum they might, during the time immediately following their arrival, find shelter, food, medicines, etc., and all the implements necessary to a settler, at cost. The inst.i.tution might be established either by the home government, by a humanitarian emigration society, or by a land company in the colony itself.]

[Footnote 261-4: There pa.s.sed

================================================================ | _In 1854._ | _In 1867._ ------------------------+-------------------|------------------- Through Bremen, | 76,875 emigrants. | 73,971 emigrants.

Through Hamburg, | 50,819 " | 42,845 "

(Of these directly only | 32,310) " | (38,170) "

Through Havre, | 95,849 " | 22,753 "

Through Antwerp, | 25,843 " | 12,086 "

Through other ports, | 2,500 " | ================================================================

The trade of Bremen has, as the result of this transportation of emigrants, grown just as that of the Italian sea coast cities by the transportation of the crusaders in the Middle Ages. Here, as in so many other cases, genuine philanthropy, in the long run, moves nearly parallel with real economic advantage. And in fact, the Statuta civitatis Messiliae of 1228 (IV, 24 seq., 28, 30) contain provisions in relation to the crusaders which forcibly remind one of the modern Bremen laws. Similarly in Venice: Compare _Depping_, Histoire du Commerce entre le Levant et l'Europe, 284; II, 313 seq.]

[Footnote 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 _Hubner_, 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 princ.i.p.al 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.]

[Footnote 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 pa.s.sage 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 mult.i.tude 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.]

SECTION CCLXII.

EMIGRATION AND PAUPERISM.

As a very rare exception, an emigration suddenly undertaken, well directed and on a very large scale, may be made to const.i.tute 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 compet.i.tion of great foreign manufacturers and machinery, the hopelessness of the situation consists princ.i.p.ally 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. .h.i.therto 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]

[Footnote 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, pa.s.sim; _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 a.s.sist emigration to the extent of 10 per capita. Between 1849 and 1853, they a.s.sisted 1,826 poor persons on an average per annum, who received for that purpose 10,352.

(_Kries_, Engl. Armenpflege, 1863, 30.)]

[Footnote 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 subst.i.tution, etc. The ancient Italians sometimes realized this idea by the _ver sacrum_. Similarly in many cases of Greek emigration, by the worship of Apollo: Compare _W. H. Roscher_, Apollon und Mars (1873), 82 ff.]

SECTION CCLXII (_a_).

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 pa.s.sage; 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.ses, 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]

[Footnote 262a-1: The locust-like emigration from Ireland to England takes three princ.i.p.al directions: from Dublin to Liverpool, from Cork to Bristol, from the North-East to Scotland. This even before 1835. (_Berkeley_, Querist, Nr., 526 ff.) Great increase since the fare has been reduced on the steamers to from 4 to 6 pence. (Edinburg Rev., XLV, 54 ff.; XLVII, 236 ff.)]

[Footnote 262a-2: Thus mowers emigrate from Wurttemberg and the Odenwald into the valley of the Rhine; inhabitants of the Alps into the South German plains, and the inhabitants of the sandy and healthy localities into the Hanoverian marshes and Holland; inhabitants of the Brabant into France.

Many go from Waesland, 5 and 6 miles distant from Holland, to sow a field manured and plowed by the owner with flax, and afterwards to weed and harvest it, etc., and at their own expense. (_Schwerz_, Belg. Landwirthschaft, II, 105.) Even in the sixteenth century, 20,000 Frenchmen went every year to Spain in harvest time. (_Boden_, Responsio ad Paradoxa, 49.) Migration of the East-goers (_Ostgeher_) from Wartebruch as far as Poland and Russia (_Fruhling_, N.

Landwirthsch., Ztg., 1870, 451 ff.) Galicians go into the Polish plains, and Poles into the Prussian low country (_v.

Haxthausen_, Landl. Verfa.s.sung, I, 99); Russians from the populous district of Oreland Poltawa etc. into the Southern steppes (_Kohl_, Reise, II, 118), and also out of Northern woody districts to Jaroslay, where they give themselves to the cultivation of the fields (_v. Haxthausen_, Studien, V, 198); Gallegos into the Portuguese wine region; inhabitants of the Abruzzi into the Roman Campagna (_Galiani_, Della Moneta, V, 4); Calabrians to Naples. In Tuscany, almost the entire cultivation of the unhealthy plains is done by the inhabitants of the mountains. Even in Africa migrations by the _fulahs_ into the plains before them (_Ritter_, Erdkunde, I, 349); of the inhabitants of the cataracts of the Nile into Lower Egypt, where they remain from six to eight years, and where they are in great favor because of their honesty as gate-keepers and pack-carriers.

(_Burckhardt_, Travels, 147.)]

[Footnote 262a-3: In Paris, a great many masons and carpenters from Lothringen and Limousin, who return after from 6 to 7 months. The number of these migratory building workmen is estimated at over 40,000. (_Wolowski._) Thus thousands of brick makers migrate from Vicentini and Friaul into Austria and Hungary; from the vicinity of lakes Como and Lugan, masons have been spread over all Italy, and this, it is said, has been going on a thousand years, (_v.

Rumohr_, Reise in die Lombardei, 135 ff.) Yearly migration of about 3,000 brick finishers from Lippe-Detmold, which is very opportunely directed by the government. (_F. G.

Schulze_, Nat. Oek., 606.)]

[Footnote 262a-4: In the Apennines, almost every valley has its own migration-district. Thus the Modeneses go to Corsica, and the Parmesanes to England. The migration from the German Tyrol amounts yearly to between 16,000 and 17,000 men. (_v. Reden_, Zeitschrift fur Statistik, 1848, 522.) In the Canton of Tessin, over 11,000 pa.s.ses are given for this purpose yearly; that is, to more than 10 per cent. of the entire population. The majority go to Upper Italy, but some go to Russia. The cheese-makers, pack-carriers and dealers in chestnuts, migrate from fall to spring; masons, glaziers, etc. in summer.]

[Footnote 262a-5: Savoyards as "shoe-blacks" etc. in Paris (_L. Faucher_, La Colonie des S. a Paris); Portuguese, as peddlers and pack-carriers in large cities in Brazil (_Jahn_, Beitr., 33); Gallegos in the large cities of Spain and Portugal as water-carriers; Bergamasks, in Milan and Genoa as pack-servants, where they const.i.tute a kind of guild; the inhabitants about Lake Orta (south of the Lago Maggiore) as waiters, and hence the inns there are very good; Bohemian musicians, who carry on quite a different business at home during the winter; Grisons, as confectioners all over Europe. Many villages obtain from this source 20,000 florins. (_Roder und Tscharner_, C.

Graubundten, I, 337.) There are at this time about three million people from China, and almost exclusively from the conquered and oppressed province of Fokien, in Farther India, where they execute the finer kinds of labor.

(_Ritter_, Erdkunde, IV, 787 ff.)]

[Footnote 262a-6: In Tessin, the fields are tilled, and badly enough, by old men, women etc. The men spend in the taverns and in all kinds of vice what they saved during the working season (_Franscini_, C. Tessen, 156 ff.) Those who migrate from the vicinity of Osnabruck into Holland are said to bring back with them yearly about 100,000 thalers; but their abstinence from warm food, their bivouacking etc., to which they have recourse for the sake of frugality, lays the germs of numberless diseases. (_J. Moser_, P. Ph, I, 14 ff.) There are serious complaints of the demoralization of women produced in England by the gang-system, in which roving workmen, mostly Irish, are employed under a gang master to perform contract work. (_L. Faucher_, Etudes sur l'Angleterre, 2, ed. I, 383, ff.)]

[Footnote 262a-7: Hence, for instance, Osnabruck complained bitterly of the migration to Holland, because it raised the wages of servants. However, the absolute freedom of removal from one place to another produces not only a leveling of wages, but also an absolute rise of the rate of wages, as may be seen by contrasting it with the _glebae adscriptio_.

Compare _supra_, -- 160.]

[Footnote 262a-8: Great danger to the national life of the English people by immigration from Ireland. The Irish laborers, bare-footed and ragged, restricting themselves to potatoes and whisky, have carried their disgusting habit of living in cellars, and of congregating several families together into one room, even with pigs as companions, over to England. (_Th. Carlyle_, On Chartism, 28 ff.; _G. C.

Lewis_, The Condition of the Irish in England.) It is said that, in 1819, in London alone, there were over 70,000 Irish; in 1826, over 119,000. (Edinb. Rev. XLVII.) Even _J.

S. Mill_ would have no hesitation to prohibit this emigration to prevent the economic contagion spreading to English workmen. (Principles, I, ch. 14, 6.) Fortunately now Irish emigration has taken the direction of America, where there is more room. Whether in future Chinese emigration may not greatly endanger the condition of the lower cla.s.ses, first in America and Australia, and then indirectly in Europe, _quaere_. It is estimated that between 1856 and 1859, 78,817 Chinese emigrated to the United States. In Australia, to deter them from immigration, a tax of 10 per capita has been imposed on their entry into the country. (_Fawcett_, Manual, 107.)]

[Footnote 262a-9: Of the East Indian coolies who had gone to Demarara, 469 returned in September, 1869, after having saved in five years, 11.235. (_Appun_, Unter den Troppen, II, 34).]

[Footnote 262a-10: The Grisons had, during the 17th century, accustomed themselves to living some time in the Venetian territory as shoemakers, 1,000 at a time. The blow was all the more severe when Venice, in 1766, expelled all the families. Since that time most of the Grison confectionaries in the princ.i.p.al cities of Europe have had their origin.

(_Roder und Tcharner_, C. Graudbundten, I, 56.) The practice of engaging mercenaries as troops was of great a.s.sistance, especially in the interior of Switzerland. During the war of 1690 ff., there were nearly 36,000 Swiss hirelings in the French army. Shortly before 1789, even during the period of peace in France, Italy, Spain and Holland, their number may be estimated to have been at least 30,000. (_Meyer v.

Knonau_, Gesch. der Schweiz. Eidgenossenschaft, II, 104, 464.) No wonder, therefore, that the cessation of the Swiss guards caused a frightful crisis. Expulsion of the Tessinians from Lombardy, 1853.]

SECTION CCLXIII.

CONCLUSION.

That the economy of no nation can continue to grow _ad infinitum_ is, in general, as easy to believe[263-1] as it is difficult to point out with a specification of particulars what are the limits which cannot be exceeded. This would be possible first in the case of agriculture. Here there are points beyond which every man practically versed in the art can see, that an increase of the gross product must be attended by an absolute decrease in the net product.[263-2] But even supposing that a people had reached this point in their entire agriculture, they might still carry on industries, commerce, perform personal services for other nations, and obtain remuneration therefor in the means of subsistence and manufactured articles. If our nation has once entered on this path, it is evident that every improvement of its industry, every advance made by foreign countries in the production of raw material, manufactures and the consumption of services must result in a growth of our economy.

David Hume was of opinion that industrial preponderance was in a necessary and continual state of transition from one country to another.

A very highly developed state of industry made a country rich in money but enhanced the price of the means of subsistence, and the rate of wages; until finally it became impossible for it to compete in the markets of the world with cheaper countries, and industry, in consequence, emigrated to these.[263-3] But it is easy to see how all such limits are extended by the modern improvements in transportation, and the consequent facilitation of importation; and how much the remedy mentioned in -- 198 has gained in importance by the modern advances made in machinery and the preponderance in so many respects of machine over hand labor.[263-4]

But here it is necessary to distinguish between the "applied" and only practical political economy, and "pure political economy." (-- 217.) A development thus continued would be attended with great difficulty even if the whole world const.i.tuted one great empire. We need only mention Austria, where some provinces have remained in a very backward, almost medieval condition, while others have for a long time manifested the symptoms of over-population. How much more in different states. An uncivilized nation will frequently not care to increase its consumption of our manufactures, if to do so it becomes necessary to carry on its agriculture more industriously. Another nation that has already tasted of the fruit of the tree of economic knowledge may not be satisfied with the mere production of raw material forever. In time it may want to carry on commerce and industry itself, and hence consider the breaking of its commercial course with us as a species of emanc.i.p.ation from us.

And, further, how if other highly cultivated nations should compete with us in the markets of countries which produce merely raw material? if such rivals should wage war in which each party should harm his adversary for the mere love of doing harm, and not unfrequently in opposition to its own economic interests? I know of no period the development of which has not been attended by such disturbances, and hence they cannot be said to be entirely unnatural.[263-5]

And even at home and among highly civilized nations, there are wont to be many obstacles to advancement on this road of progress. Every great economic change is connected as cause and effect, with a variety of political, social and other reformations which are never accomplished without great hardship and hesitation.[263-6] Where the division of labor has been developed to any extent, the formerly existing circ.u.mstances which must be surrendered for the sake of progress are generally synonymous with the interests of some cla.s.s. This cla.s.s opposes the improvement, and a struggle becomes necessary to carry it out. But under certain circ.u.mstances, a long delay in effecting a necessary reform may paralyse or poison the minds of the people to such an extent that they may afterwards have neither the will nor the power to successfully advance. This is the most important exception to the rule laid down in -- 24. The happier the ethnographic and social composition of a people, the better the national spirit, the more skillful the form of its const.i.tution, the less frequently will it happen.[263-7] All this is true especially of over-population and the plethora[263-8] of capital which so easily injure the morality of a people. New inventions also, by means of which the limits of the possibility of production may be incalculably extended can be expected only from nations where there is no intellectual decline.[263-9]

[Footnote 263-1: There are, indeed, different opinions on this matter, and they were preponderant during the second half of the eighteenth century. Compare _Condorcet_, Tableau historique, des Progres de l'Esprit humain, especially Epoque X, in which he treats of future progress.

Nevertheless, he obscurely alludes (uvres, VIII, 350) to a time when no further increase of population should take place. _Malthus_, Principle of Population, III, ch. 1, thoroughly demonstrates that in regard to the great prolongation of human life which he foresaw, the idea of the indefinite and that of the infinite were confounded with each other.

In that young and vigorous country, the United States of America, we find a popular school which, to say the least, hints at the principle of infinite growth. Thus, for instance, _Peshine Smith_ (Manual of Political Economy, New York, 1853) teaches that the means of subsistence consumed at the place of production are not destroyed, but may return just as much to the soil in the form of manure as they had previously drawn from it (ch. 1). Capital has a tendency to increase more rapidly than population (ch. 6). The rate of wages has a tendency to increase with the increase of population (ch. 5). Mechanical progress increases the value of human labor and causes that of capital to decline relatively (ch. 3). He reverses, with _Carey_, Ricardo's law of rent (ch. 2).