The effects of the immigration movement upon the countries of source are in a way much more simple than the effects upon the United States. None of the problems of race mixture, assimilation, varying racial inheritances, etc., are involved. They are confined principally to the three questions of the effect of the removal of parts of the population, the effect of the remittances from America, and the effect of the returned immigrant. But while simpler, these effects are perhaps none the less subtle than those in the United States, nor any less difficult of prediction—for in Europe, as in America, the effects of this great movement must be largely in the future.
It is one of the corollaries of the Malthusian theory of population that a steady, regular emigration from a country has no power to check the rate of increase of population in that country. This opinion has been accepted by many leading students of social subjects from Malthus’ day down to the present. In fact, the general idea was expressed as early as 1790 by an anonymous writer in that quaint old magazine, the American Museum. He says: “When a country is so much crowded with people that the price of the means of subsistence is beyond the ratio of their industry, marriages are restrained: but when emigration to a certain degree takes place, the balance between the means of subsistence and industry is restored, and population thereby revived. Of the truth of this principle there are many proofs in the old counties of all the American states. Population has constantly been advanced in them by the migration of their inhabitants to new or distant settlements.”[367] John Stuart Mill believed that a steady emigration was powerless to cure the ills of overpopulation.[368] Roscher and Jannasch maintain that not only will emigration not decrease population, but may actually make the increase of population greater than it would otherwise be.[369] Réné Gonnard, the French writer, says that the fact of emigration gives a stimulus to the birth rate, and cites Adam Smith, Malthus, Garnier, Roscher, and De Molinari in support of the view.[370] Robert Hunter also expresses his adherence to this opinion.[371]
With the laws of population in mind we can easily understand how this condition may result—in fact, how it must result theoretically. Every society, in the course of its development, reaches a balance between the means of subsistence and the desire for reproduction. This balance is represented by the standard of living. In a society where the desire for reproduction greatly overbalances the desire for comforts and luxuries, the standard of living will be low, and the rate of increase of population high. In a society where the appetite for material welfare is strong, the opposite conditions will prevail. Changing conditions present the possibility of change either in the rate of reproduction or in the standard of living. As we have already observed, the former is the more flexible of the two. Particularly in static societies, such as exist in European countries, where social positions have become thoroughly stratified, any gradual amelioration in circumstances is much more likely to result in an increased rate of population growth than in an improved standard of living.
Emigration, by temporarily relieving congestion to a certain extent, offers a chance of betterment. But in general, if the emigration is moderate, this chance is seized by the reproductive power rather than by the standard of living. The rate of increase of population rises until the drain of emigration is offset, while the standard of living remains unaltered, and the total population continues virtually the same. The very fact of emigration gives a sense of hopefulness to the people, and the knowledge that there is an ever ready outlet for redundant inhabitants causes the population of the country to multiply more rapidly than it otherwise would. This is the result which must reasonably be expected to follow all regular and gradual emigration movements.
On the other hand, while the withdrawal of a more or less uniform number of inhabitants, year by year, has no power to reduce population, and may actually tend to increase it, the opposite result may be achieved where there is such a sudden and extensive removal of people from a country, that those who remain feel a definite and profound lightening of pressure. This must be sufficiently immediate and widespread to produce a sudden and significant rise in wages or fall in prices. In such a case it may occur that, before the forces of population have had time to fill the breach, the people may have become accustomed to a somewhat higher standard of living, which thereafter they may be able and inclined to maintain.
The peculiar sex distribution of modern emigration probably has the effect of increasing the possibility of reducing the population in the countries of source, out of proportion to the actual number of emigrants, just as it lessens the likelihood of increasing population in the country of destination.
Such is the theoretic argument as regards the effect of emigration upon the population of a country. It may be summed up in the words of John Stuart Mill, “When the object is to raise the permanent condition of a people, small means do not merely produce small effects, they produce no effects at all.”
There is no lack of authoritative opinions to support this view. In addition to those already cited, the following may be noted. Douglas, Earl of Selkirk, in his pamphlet on “Emigration” dated 1806, expresses his belief that emigration does not reduce population, and cites the Isle of Skye as a case in point. The population of this island in 1772 was about 12,000. Between this date and 1791, 4000 people emigrated, and at least 8000 more moved in a more gradual and less conspicuous way to the Low Country of Scotland. Yet the population more than kept even.[372]
Mr. Whelpley says, “There is no hope of an exhaustion of supply, for the most prolific races are now contributing their millions, and yet increasing the population of their own countries. There is no hope of an improvement in quality, for the best come first and the dregs follow.”[373] Professor Mayo-Smith says, “Emigration does not threaten to depopulate the countries of Europe. Had there been no emigration during this century (the nineteenth) it is not probable that the population of Europe would have been any greater than it is. The probabilities are all the other way.”[374]
Professor Taussig, while not stating this opinion in so many words, appears to adhere to it when he says that without emigration Sweden and Italy would have had—not a larger population—but either a higher death rate or a lower birth rate.[375]
If we seek for a statistical demonstration of the foregoing argument we are confronted with the same impossibility of securing it which has become so familiar in the course of this work. These matters do not adjust themselves with clocklike regularity, but operate over long periods, and are complicated by innumerable other factors. Even though two phenomena are shown to operate harmoniously, it is not always possible to prove which is cause and which effect. The declining birth rate has been a common phenomenon in almost all European countries during the last forty years, and particularly during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century.[376] An opponent of the view we are considering could point to this fact as a contradiction of the claim, while one on the opposite side could assert that the decline would have been equally rapid and perhaps more so without any emigration at all. Neither could prove his case. Even if it could be demonstrated that the countries which experience the largest emigration also manifest the highest rate of increase in population, it might be easily maintained that it was the extreme growth of population that accounted for the large emigration, rather than the reverse. About all that can be shown is that a large emigration and a high rate of increase of population may go together. Examples of this state of affairs are numerous.[377]
Of the opposite case, where a sudden and extensive emigration has cut down population, there have been a few historical examples, notably that of Ireland. The population of Ireland diminished from 8,100,000 in 1841 to 6,500,000 in 1851, and 5,700,000 in 1861. Since then it has steadily declined to 4,456,000 in 1901.[378] The fact that the beginning of this decline was coincident with the great exodus to America has made it customary to explain the decreasing population by emigration. But even in this case, it is a question whether it would not be more accurate to assign the decrease in population in Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century to the famine, rather than to emigration. The famine was the primary fact, and had passed the death sentence upon a large proportion of the people; emigration—to carry out the figure—merely commuted that sentence to exile. It furnished an outlet to thousands who were otherwise doomed to die. It has been claimed that Norway has lost a greater part of her population by emigration to America than any other European country except Ireland.[379]
The obvious effect of the remittances from America is a beneficial one, inasmuch as it increases the purchasing power of those of the peasant class who remain at home. The immigrant in the United States who sends money back to Europe is earning in a country where the price level is high and spending in a country where it is low, which is a manifest advantage. Even though his real wages are the same as he might command at home, as long as there is a margin of saving his family benefits financially by the arrangement. But in so far as this money sent home results in an increase of the monetary circulation in the European country, its desirability is more questionable. The Immigration Commission notes an increase in wages in some immigrant-furnishing sections of southern and eastern Europe. If this were accompanied by a corresponding rise in prices, there would of course be no real gain. Something of this sort has actually occurred in Greece. Several forces, among which the remittances from America stand prominent, have within the last few years brought the exchange between paper and gold down nearly to par. The result has been to diminish seriously the purchasing power of the income of the ordinary workingman. For while large payments are made in gold, ordinary purchases are made in paper, so that while both money incomes and prices have remained approximately the same, the workman who gets his gold piece changed finds that he now has only 108 paper drachmas or so to make his purchases with, where ten years ago he had 160 or so.[380]
Even where no such disadvantageous effects can be observed, it is a question whether it is a healthy state of affairs for any nation to be largely supported by money earned in another land, and sent back in a form which gives it the nature of a gift in the eyes of the common people.
As to the effect of the returned immigrant upon his native country, opinions again differ. Some observers see a great advantage accruing to European countries from the better habits of life, the more advanced knowledge of agricultural and other industrial methods, and the more independent and self-reliant spirit, which the returned immigrants bring back with them. To them, the returned emigrant appears as a disseminator of new ideas and higher culture, and a constant inspiration to more effective living. There are others in whose opinion the evil influences exerted by the returned immigrant largely outweigh the good. While they build better houses, and wear better clothes, they are idle and egoistical. They take no active interest in the life of those around them, and make no effort to spread among their fellows the advantages of what they have learned in America. Their example arouses feelings of discontent and restlessness among their neighbors, and leads to further emigration, rather than to the betterment of conditions at home. They are misfits in the old environment.
There is undoubtedly much of truth in both of these opinions, and numerous cases might be found to illustrate either. A very helpful idea of the two-sided aspect of this matter may be gained by studying a concrete case, furnished by a single country. For this purpose, excellent material is furnished by the careful study of “The Effect of Emigration upon Italy” made by Mr. Antonio Mangano,[381] who has gone into all the divisions of his subject in an admirable way.
This author finds that emigration, great as it has been, has not decreased the population of Italy, which, on the contrary, is larger than ever. He does not say that the rate of increase has been as great as it would have been without emigration, nor could this be proved. It is certain that some sections of Italy have been seriously depopulated, though the population of the country as a whole has increased. It is quite possible that emigration from Italy at the present time approaches the sudden and sweeping type sufficiently so that it may actually check the rate of increase of population.
As to the effects of the money sent home, and the returned immigrants, he finds contrary opinions, and facts on both sides of the case. Among the beneficial results of emigration he finds that wages have increased fifty per cent, so that the peasants who remain have benefited by the departure of others. Farm machinery has been introduced, usury has almost disappeared, and the percentage of violent crimes has been reduced. The returned immigrant carries himself better, dresses better, and has a greater spirit of independence, which he communicates to others. There has arisen a growing demand for rudimentary education. Many peasants have been enabled to buy land.
But on the other side there are many evil results to be reckoned with. The ignorant peasant has been cheated in the quality and price of the land he has bought, and after two or three years of unsuccessful effort learns that he cannot make even a living from it, and sells it at a great loss, sometimes to the very landlord from whom he purchased it. The southern provinces are losing their working population, so that the production, which was inadequate before, has become even more insufficient. Carefully cultivated and terraced land is being laid waste through neglect. As a result there has been a notable increase in prices and in the cost of living, which nearly or entirely offsets the higher wages of the peasants, and brings a disproportionately heavy burden on the salaried and clerical classes. Women have been driven to take up hard labor in the fields, to the extent that a physical injury to the rising generation is already observable. As a consequence of the breaking up of families, there has been a tendency toward moral degeneracy, not only on the part of the men who have emigrated, but of the women who are left. Prostitution, illegitimacy, and infanticide have increased. Children are growing up without salutary restraint. Tuberculosis, almost unknown in Italy before emigration, is spreading rapidly. Only a few of the returned emigrants are willing to settle down permanently in the old country, and work for its uplift, and there is no assurance that the money which has been sent to Italy for safe keeping will be ultimately spent there. Many of the young men who return, bring back vices with them, and serve as a demoralizing example while they remain.[382] From the governmental point of view, there is an alarming deficiency of recruits for the army. Even the new houses, built with American money, are not always an improvement on the old, as no new ideas come in with the remittances.
A comparison of these two categories emphasizes the fact that the favorable effects are, in general, the more obvious and immediate ones. They are the ones which catch the eye of the traveler or the superficial observer. They are the ones which appear to have particularly impressed the Immigration Commission, as evidenced by their seemingly hasty review of conditions on the other side.[383] It is upon these that Professor Steiner, with his warm fellow-feeling for the immigrant lays special stress. Even Miss Balch gives prominence to this class of effects. The injurious results of such a movement as emigration are likely to be of such a nature as makes them slow of development, and difficult to observe and calculate. Physical and moral degeneracy are slower to appear than high wages and new houses, but at the same time they are more important. Taking everything into account, it seems probable that, for Italy at least, emigration under the present conditions will prove at least as much of a curse as a blessing.
Conditions in Greece resemble in many respects those in Italy, though the depopulation of the country seems even more imminent. Not only has the emigration been very sudden, but it is almost exclusively male, so that there seems a real danger of a serious diminution of population in the kingdom. Although the emigration movement is so recent in Greece that effects can hardly yet be looked for, yet here, as in Italy, the immediate favorable results of better houses, a reduction of the rate of interest, mortgages cleared from the land, higher wages and lower rates of interest are already manifest. The darker side, too, is beginning to show in the assumption of hard labor by the women, the lack of laborers in certain sections, the increase of immorality among the women, and the introduction of a demoralizing example by returned young men. Prices and the cost of living have increased. The returned immigrant, instead of serving as an uplifting example of intelligent industry, is likely so to conduct himself as to add to the already prevalent scorn for hard work, and increase the prevailing unrest and discontent which leads to further emigration.[384]
The general conclusion in regard to the effects of emigration upon European countries, which the facts appear to justify, is that the movement is at least of doubtful benefit to the countries of source.[385] The obvious beneficial results are partially if not wholly offset by certain undesirable consequences, insidious and persistent in their nature, and likely to make themselves more manifest with the passage of years. The attitude of European governments serves as a verification of this conclusion. It is certain that the advantages of emigration do not sufficiently outweigh its drawbacks in the eyes of most of these governments to lead them to regard it otherwise than with disfavor, although none of them now practically forbid it.[386] Nor is that attitude due to the military interest alone.
The question of the effects of immigration upon the immigrants is perhaps the most difficult of all to determine. It is manifest that it must affect all of their life interests, in their own generation and for many generations to come. And particularly, if it is desired to ascertain whether the immigrant gains or loses in the long run by his undertaking, the effort involves the attempt at evaluation of almost every human activity, in order that a balance may be struck between the good and the bad.
On the face of it, it seems that there must be some gain to the immigrants from immigration. It is inconceivable that such a movement should continue year after year unless those directly concerned in it were profiting thereby. It is true, to be sure, that there is a vast deal of misinformation, and false hope, on the part of the immigrants. Those who are interested in their coming strive to paint the future in the brightest possible colors, and to minimize the drawbacks. The example of one or two eminently successful acquaintances is likely to wholly outweigh that of many who only scrape along or fail altogether. Nevertheless, making all allowances, it seems necessary to believe that there is a net margin of advantage in the long run. It is perhaps possible that this advantage may often be more specious than real, and that the immigrant may believe himself the gainer when, if he could balance true values, he would find himself in a more pitiable case than before.
The great gain of the immigrant is to be looked for in the field of wealth, or material prosperity. There can be little doubt that on the average the immigrant is able to earn and save more, not only of money, but of wealth in the broader sense, than he could at home. This is the great underlying motive of modern immigration, and if it were illusory, the movement must soon fail. A comparison of economic conditions in Europe and America, as far as this can be made, seems to bear this out. Both wages and prices are lower, on the whole, in the countries which send us most of our immigrants than they are in the United States. But wages appear to be proportionally lower than prices. The money sent from America is a very real and tangible thing, and represents a great economic advance on the part of a large proportion of the immigrants.
Doubtless, there is also somewhat of gain in independence and freedom for many of the immigrants. The growth of class distinctions in the United States has not yet proceeded so far that the immigrant from Austria-Hungary or Italy does not feel an improvement in his social status. To be sure, the classes of population with which the immigrant establishes this social equality in the United States are not such as to do him the greatest conceivable good, but a sense of heightened self-respect and self-reliance does undoubtedly develop, nevertheless.[387]
Many of the immigrants, of course, forge ahead, either because of unusual ability or exceptional good fortune, and attain a position of advancement in every way which would have been utterly inconceivable in their old home. There are countless instances of prosperous business men, eminent and respected citizens, invaluable servants of society in this country, who could never have been anything but humble peasants in their home land. These shining examples attract much attention here and abroad, and serve as valuable illustrations of what may be accomplished under favorable circumstances.[388]
But for the bulk of the ordinary immigrants the economic and other advantages are offset by terrible hardships and losses. As one thinks of the broken and separated families, often never reunited; of the depressing, and degrading group life of men in this country; of religious ideals shattered and new vices acquired in the unwonted and untempered atmosphere of American liberty; of the frequent industrial accidents and unceasing overstrain of the Slavs in mine and factory, upon which they reckon as one of the concomitants of life in America, and which sends them back to Europe in a few years, broken and prematurely aged, but with an accumulation of dollars;[389] of the tuberculosis contracted by Italians in the confined life to which they are unaccustomed, and by Greek boot-blacks in their squalid quarters and their long day’s labors;[390] of the sad conditions of labor in the sweatshops and tenement workrooms;[391] of the child labor in the cranberry bogs of Massachusetts and New Jersey;[392] of the destruction of family life by the taking of boarders, and the heart-breaking toil of the boarding-boss’s wife;[393] of the unremitting toil and scant recreation, of the low wages and insufficient standard of living, of the unsparing and niggardly thrift by which the savings are made possible—as one thinks of these things, which are all too common to be considered exceptional, and compares them with the conditions which characterize peasant life in Europe, where many æsthetic and neighborly circumstances tend to offset the poverty, one cannot help wondering how large a proportion of our immigrants finally reap a net gain in the things that are really worth while.
It is useless for any individual to undertake to answer this question categorically for immigrants in general. The answer rests too much upon personal opinion and estimation of relative values. The point that needs to be emphasized in this connection is that against the evident and unquestioned economic gain of most, and the general social and intellectual gain of many, there must be set off a long list of serious, though not always obvious, evils which result for a large proportion of the immigrants under present conditions.
The question of the desirability of immigration from the point of view of humanity as a whole, as previously stated, is a summation of the aspects of the problem from the point of view of the United States, the countries of source, and the immigrants. This balance must be struck by every student for himself. The effort has been made in the foregoing pages to set forth the facts which condition this great movement at the present time, as a groundwork upon which reasonable conclusions may be based. It has appeared that for the United States there is at present no real need of further immigrants, and that the most that can be said is that they do no harm. On the other hand, it seems likely that the evil effects from the movement as at present conducted—effects to be developed mainly in the future rather than existent at the present time—will overbalance any good that may result. From the point of view of European countries, while the advantages are obvious, it appears that there are also fundamental drawbacks which may in the end more than offset the gain. For the immigrant there is an undoubted net margin of advantage on the average; but this advantage is less general and real than is often supposed, and is qualified by many weighty considerations. In striking this balance it is important to bear in mind the influence of emigration and immigration upon total population. If it is true that immigrants in a large measure are supplanters of native population, rather than additions to population, it then becomes a question whether the immigrants as a body are happier than the native population would have been, which would otherwise have filled their places.
In regard to national prosperity and welfare, moreover, it must ever be remembered that the effects of immigration upon all countries concerned, particularly upon the receiving country, are scarcely more than in the embryo. Such a tremendous movement as this must inevitably have significant and far-reaching results. But only a prophetic vision could state with assurance what those results will be.
One thing, however, seems certain—that the movement is not accomplishing all the good that it might. Many of the foregoing statements in regard to immigration have been qualified by the phrase “as at present conducted.” The peculiar circumstances which have given rise to the immigration movement certainly contain possibilities of great advantage to the human race. It ought to be possible so to utilize them as to bring about a great and permanent uplift for the whole of mankind. There is no assurance that our present policy, adopted in its main features at a time when conditions were radically different,[394] guarantees this uplift in its maximum degree. What, then, ought to be done about it? This is the real kernel of the immigration problem for the statesman and the practical sociologist.
One of the great difficulties with which sincere social workers have to contend in almost every field of their efforts is that practical economics has advanced so much more rapidly than practical sociology. Our knowledge of the technique of production and transportation, and of the industrial arts, has made phenomenal strides in the past century. The growth of cities, the development of the factory system, easy means of communication between all countries, the growth of the world market, advances in agricultural methods which have made the soil much more productive per unit of labor, have coöperated to introduce a new set of social conditions and problems with which we have not yet learned to grapple. Our knowledge of how to produce satisfactory social relations is far behind our knowledge of how to produce wealth. This is strikingly evident in the matter of immigration. If transportation conditions and means of communication had remained as they were at the time of the Revolution, our present immigration situation could never have arisen. There would have been a natural barrier which would have prevented too large increments of European population from entering the new country while it was working out its problems and gradually finding itself. The problems of immigration which presented themselves would have been of sufficiently moderate dimensions so that they could have been dealt with as they arose. As it is, the recent rapid development of communication has made the ease of immigration so great that we have been overwhelmed by the resulting problems. The movement of millions of people from one region to another is a phenomenon of prodigious sociological import. Modern mechanical progress has made this movement possible, before the nations or the individuals concerned have advanced far enough in social science to know how to make the most of it.
Granting that there is an immigration problem, and granting that there is a desire to grapple with it, there are two methods of attack. The first is, to pick out the obvious evils, and apply a specific to them one by one. The other is to endeavor to determine the underlying principles and to devise a consistent and comprehensive plan which will go to the root of the matter, relying upon established sociological laws. The first method is much the simpler. It is the one which has hitherto been followed out in our immigration legislation. One by one certain crying evils have been met by definite measures. After half a century of protest, paupers and criminals were refused admission. A little later contract laborers were debarred. Certain diseased classes, growing more comprehensive with the years, have been excluded. The principle of deportation has been introduced and gradually enlarged. Steamship companies have been made responsible for the return of nonadmissible aliens. The net result of these measures has unquestionably been beneficial. This type of remedy, if wisely administered, is always valuable, and should be adopted, in the absence or delay of the other kind of solution.
Certain other improvements of this general type readily suggest themselves. The steerage should be abolished, and United States inspectors placed on all immigrant-carrying vessels. If possible, better provisions should be adopted for turning back inadmissibles early on their journey. Immigrant banks and lodging houses should receive stricter supervision. The padrone system and the unrestricted contract labor system should be abolished. Tenement houses should be supervised in the strictest way possible. Every remedial agency designed to better the lot of the alien in this country should be encouraged.
It appears that many of the ills of immigration are due to faulty distribution and the lack of efficient contact between aliens and the better classes of Americans. Consequently, the need of better distribution, and various schemes for securing it, are constantly urged in the press, and in other writings on the subject. Yet we are warned to be on our guard against pinning too much faith to this solution of the problem. There are many evils which distribution alone cannot remedy, and there is competent authority for the statement that much of the agitation for better distribution emanates from interests which profit by a large immigration, and which hope in this way to blind the eyes of the American people to the more deep-seated evils, and to hush the cry for some restrictive measures. Some think, also, that if there ever was a time when any scheme of distribution would have been effective, it is now long since past.[395]
In such ways as the foregoing, great good may be accomplished, and many of the more obvious evils avoided or mitigated. It does not seem possible, however, that in such a manner can the greatest possible good be derived from the immigration movement. This can be achieved only through the operation of some far-reaching, inclusive plan of regulation, based on the broadest and soundest principles, in which all countries concerned will concur. The formulation of such a plan requires the greatest wisdom of which man is capable. It is possible that we have not yet advanced far enough in social science to make the construction of such a plan feasible. In such a case, it might be the part of wisdom and honor to radically restrict the numbers of immigrants until such a plan can be devised and put into operation. Otherwise, the peculiar situation of the United States among nations may disappear, and the possibilities of gain to the race be lost forever, before the maximum advantage has been secured. One of the strongest arguments for restriction at the present time is that the United States is not yet qualified to accept the responsibility of admitting unlimited numbers of eager seekers for advantages, and giving them in fullest measure those things which they desire, and which their earnest efforts merit.
One thing, meanwhile, must be remembered—the problem will not solve itself. If there are evils connected with immigration, there is no prospect that in the natural course of events they will disappear of themselves. The history of immigration has been a history of successive waves of population, from sources ever lower in the economic, if not in the social, scale. If it has seemed at any time that the country was about to adjust itself to a certain racial admixture, a new and more difficult element has presented itself. And the process will go on. As General Walker pointed out long ago, immigration of the lowest class “will not be permanently stopped so long as any difference of economic level exists between our population and that of the most degraded communities abroad.”[396] Under present conditions a diminution in the immigration stream should not be interpreted as a cause of congratulation, but rather deep consternation. For, except to the extent that restriction is actually accomplished by our laws, a cessation of the stream of immigration to the United States can only mean that economic conditions in this country have fallen to so low a pitch that it is no longer worth while for the citizens of the meanest and most backward foreign country to make the moderate effort to get here.