Emigration agent

“ Thus we find that, in this respect also, moral as well as physical causes control emigration. The first are as powerful, if not more powerful than the latter. In the United States, both are at work in attracting emigrants, and hence why there is a larger European immigration to this country than to any other on the face of the globe. ”

“ The emigrants that new countries will care to get are not those that we want to leave us, while those we can best spare are not likely to be willingly received. Under such circumstances, the plans of state-aided emigration, put forward with too much persistency, seems to me to be sadly mistaken. ”

“ If we consider emigration as a desirable thing for them, they are not able of themselves to accomplish it. However fair or however rich a distant land may be, they are unable to reach it without help. ”

“ Mendicancy would not be encouraged. The intending emigrant would be put into the way of realising the glorious privilege of being independent; and, as we showed before, his fellow-countrymen, though not relieved directly by the same individual or association, would be so indirectly. In this manner there could be a thorough investigation into the eligibility of each person—an investigation much more efficient than can possibly be made by the Emigration Commissioners, whose transactions must necessarily be on a large scale. ”

“ SECTION 2.—UNIVERSAL EMIGRATION. We have in our remarks on the Over-Sea Colony referred to the general concensus of opinion on the part of those who have studied the Social Question as to Emigration being the only remedy for the overcrowded population of this country, at the same time showing some of the difficulties which lie in the way of the adoption of the remedy; the dislike of the people to so great a change as is involved in going from one country to another ”

“ The best method of emigration is to dispatch from the United Kingdom every year, say, 500,000 youths and girls from 15 years of age and upwards. These would find homes at low wages in settlers’ families in Canada, South Africa and Australia, and would become acclimatised and absorbed into the population. This emigration should be a State scheme and COMPULSORY. But the emigrants should not be made slaves of. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In every large group there are almost certain to be some who have been over the road before. All the emigrant needs to do is to allow himself to be passed along submissively from one stage to another—provided he has the money to pay. For those who make the way easy must have an ample recompense.
As the seacoast and the port of embarkation draw near, the groups of emigrants increase in size by constant additions. In the important emigration ports they arrive by thousands during the busy season. ”

“ The principle of emigration may be briefly stated. An individual and his family find that a new country affords a more prosperous field for their industry than their own, and accordingly they choose to sever the ties of home and kindred, and to become exiles for the sake of bettering their condition. ”

“ The first year of this record, 1908, followed the financial panic of October, 1907, and due to the economic conditions prevalent in the United States a very large emigration to Europe was disclosed.
The records show also that the volume of emigration, like that of immigration, varies from year to year. Just as prosperity here increases immigration, bad times increase emigration from our shores. ”

“ But heavy emigration is a phenomenon, 352and accordingly we hear much about how acceptably our alien population serves to accommodate the supply of labor to the demand. But if we stop to add up the monthly figures, we find that for the entire period after the crisis of 1907, when emigration exceeded immigration, the total decrease in alien population was only 124,124—scarcely equal to the immigration of a single month during a fairly busy season. ”

“ Under external migration are comprised emigration and immigration, denoting simply direction from and to. The emigrants are at the same time the immigrants; that is, the material of the movement is the same, but the effect upon the country giving up and the country receiving the migrant requires separate treatment. Hence it is proper to separate emigration from immigration. Temporary migration, or travel for purposes of business, enterprise or pleasure, will be considered only incidentally, and because in some cases it is difficult to distinguish between such movements and permanent migration. ”

“ The political and social results of emigration, though not susceptible of precise treatment, yet reinforce the conclusion I have drawn from a consideration of economical conditions. Older and long settled countries have, in the course of time, less reason to regret parting with various classes of their inhabitants. ”

“ All that the association desires is that the British government shall, in conjunction with the colonial authorities, draw up a well-considered scheme of emigration and colonisation, by means of which able-bodied and industrious men, who may not be possessed of the means necessary to enable them to emigrate, shall be provided with the means of colonising, or of emigrating with their families under the strictest possible guarantee that the money shall be repaid with easy interest within a certain number of years. ”

“ If these families come, many others will come after them, and thus spontaneous emigration will be developed for our country. In the disposition with which they are now proposing to emigrate, it is natural that they should flow into the same place, and the country which has the happiness to receive well the first emigrants will receive all. ”

“ EMIGRATION PROMOTED BY GERMANY—SOCIAL QUESTIONS IN THE DUAL MONARCHY
The numbers of emigrants to Canada, the States, and South America had been increasing in an alarming manner for many years. The large band of men who left their country might be divided into two classes. The larger class was composed of men who, weary of living under Austro-Hungarian administration, left the country for good, worked for money to build up a new home beyond the seas, and subsequently sent money to pay the fares of their wives and children, or other relatives to the new country. ”

“ The Americans do not emigrate—they migrate; and there are spots in any of these three kingdoms, as wild, as solitary, and as healthful, as can be found in the regions of the Far West. But we do not, however, suggest migration as a substitute for genteel emigration—although we suspect it would in many cases prove so—but merely as a step towards it—a school of trial, or training, or both. ”

“ The propriety of reserving to the Corporation the power of requiring passengers to be bonded in certain cases appears obvious on examining the history of emigration, and the unscrupulous conduct of European governments and cities in transferring to our country aged and decrepit paupers, and occasionally even criminals. ”

“ Another distinction which is often helpful is that between the permanent or predisposing causes, and the temporary or immediate causes. It frequently happens that in a given country there are conditions of long standing—perhaps inherent in the character of the country itself—which make life hard and disagreeable for the resident. Yet no immigration takes place until some relatively trivial event, of a temporary nature, occurs, which serves as the final impulse to emigration. ”

“ Many, for instance, we all know, are now occasionally assisted in our towns by benevolent individuals or associations. How much more effective might not this relief be, if instead of being given in small sums, it were bestowed at once and with the special view of enabling its objects to take advantage of the offer of the Emigration Commissioners. ”

“ The Emigration Commissioners, we learn from the Colonization Circular, are enabled to grant passages for the present to New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, to persons strictly of the labouring class, who may be considered eligible emigrants. The sum to be paid in advance in England, if the intending emigrant be one of the most desirable class, is about £1, and in addition to this he must provide himself with an outfit of clothing. There is also aid to emigrants under the Poor Law Board in special circumstances. ”

“ As emigration comprises the voluntary removal of an individual from his home State with the intention of residing abroad, but not necessarily with the intention of renouncing his nationality, it is obvious that emigrants may well retain their nationality. Emigration is in fact entirely a matter of internal legislation of the different States. ”

“ The following people are allowed to settle beyond the Ural.—All peasants and meshtchane, those engaged exclusively in agriculture, and also artisans, workmen, factory hands, merchants and shopkeepers. People of other classes must, before emigrating, apply to the governor of the province in which they live.
The Government invites no one to emigrate, and is anxious only to show all possible help to those who have decided to take that step, and to make the emigration laws and the grants and privileges accorded to colonists clear to everyone. ”

“ It is also a point of primary importance, that those persons should emigrate, who, from age, health, character, and circumstances, are best able to contend with the hardships and difficulties of a settler’s life, and it was considered that this object would be most fully attained if the emigration were entirely voluntary. ”

“ When we add to these the prospects of ready employment in the States held out to other classes of emigrants, and the stringent laws lately made for their protection, both on the passage and on their arrival, we cannot be at a loss to see that the direction which emigration has lately taken is not the result of chance or caprice, but of a deliberate comparison of advantages, which the most ignorant can easily understand and appreciate. ”

“ And, whatever may have been the true state of matters in 1840—1843, with regard to the problems of population, production, and emigration, how, taking a candid review of all the facts and prospects, can it be possible at this epoch to provide for the fresh mouths we know must be fed in the years to come, otherwise than by reducing the numbers of the people under some 'comprehensive scheme of emigration'? ”

“ If emigration is proposed as a means of securing an absolutely unrestricted increase of population by placing old countries in the position of new colonies, the hope will be soon and for ever cut off. ”

“ Every stream of immigration must have its origin in some few individuals, who, the first of their region, break the ties of home and fatherland, and go to seek their fortune in a new and far-away land. Upon their success depends the question whether others from the same district shall follow in their footsteps. If they fail in their venture, it serves as a discouraging factor as respects further emigration from that region. But if they succeed, and win a position which makes them envied in the eyes of their fellow-countrymen, it furnishes a powerful stimulus to further emigration. ”

“ In the advance of a community a point is sooner or later reached at which any further addition to population does not increase the proportional amount of wealth, and then immigration may justly take the place which emigration used to occupy in the minds of the statesmen of older countries, viz., as a danger to the welfare of society. ”

“ And, what is still worse, the sufferings of the emigrants seem destined to last for ever. The experience of one does not help the other, for the emigrants, after their arrival in America, disperse into all parts of the great continent. ”

“ As for the emigrants themselves, they consist of families and individuals, who, before leaving the mother country, are in all likelihood a dead weight on the community; as they can only obtain subsistence by elbowing out of employment other deserving individuals of the same class, whose circumstances will consequently be greatly improved by their emigration ”

“ The first is Emigration to the colonies, on a larger scale than has been yet undertaken, and with a more earnest desire, on the part of government, to make it a really effective means of relief than has been yet shown—the arrangements to be made, and the vessels to be contracted for and victualled, at the public expense, and the emigrants, therefore, having no further pecuniary burdens imposed on them than the means of supporting themselves from the time of their landing until they can procure employment. ”

“ To any one in the habit of visiting among the poor, emigration is a subject which must often present itself. When we are going through the crowded lane and dirty alley, broad fields and an open country suggest themselves by the mere force of contrast. ”

“ I confess that I have great sympathy with those who object to emigration as carried on hitherto, and if it be a consolation to any of my critics I may say at once that so far from compulsorily expatriating any Englishman I shall refuse to have any part or lot in emigrating any man or woman who does not voluntarily wish to be sent out. ”

“ There was, moreover, a great amount of truth in this view during earlier periods of immigration. Many of the migrations of two or three centuries ago were inspired by religious or political motives, or very often by a combination of the two. Such was the exodus of the Huguenots from France, of the Palatines from 378Germany, the Puritans from England, the Scotch-Irish from Ireland. In such cases as these, emigration implies strength of character, independence, firmness of conviction, moral courage, bravery, hatred of oppression, etc. ”