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From: "Miriam Medina" <>
Subject: [Bklyn] Part 13A Immigration/Emigration #21 Gen.Hist.Info. prior to 1900.
Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 08:15:15 -0400


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IMMIGRATION / EMIGRATION
(As discussed under the United States and other Countries)
General Historical Information prior to 1900
This article will contain some information up to 1913.
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Volume: 19 ECH/ENRE Pages: 981-1013

EMIGRATION
From a Different Point of View
(continue)

THE NATURE OF EMIGRATION

Is emigration an evil or is it a good? An extremely complex question,
that does not allow a unique, deductive and categorical solution. In order
to respond, it is precise to consider the emigration with relation to the
civilization in general, the country to which it emigrates, to that from
where it emigrates, the emigrant, and the interests not only material but
moral.Besides, it is necessary to distinguish between what is emigration in
its present state, and what it should be.
Consider the emigration as a historical-social phenomenon, it is
impossible not to recognize that it has produced great benefits for the
progress of humanity. It has populated uninhabited regions, has cultivated
and transformed them, has formed new villages, has converted tribes of
savages into civilized nations; has saved from perishing large social
masses, has increased the wealth in circulation, has extended humanity
throughout the lands, submitting this to the control of man, it has
established productive relations among the people, and has renovated the
world more than once. As a result of a large emigration, Christianity was
able to transform the Old World, and through emigrations, the Americas, the
Oceania, and Africa have been added to the treasure of civilization.
With regard to the countries to which emigration is directed, there is
no doubt, that emigration (which is immigration to these countries) is a
good, as long as a saturation and excess of population is not produced. By
means of emigration, knowledge and manpower is obtained; the most precious
elements of life and wealth. Half of the globe is still insufficiently
populated, particularly America, Africa and Oceania, calculating that they
need 400 million more inhabitants (besides their natural increase of
population), that they precisely will receive from Europe and Asia. However,
it is necessary that the emigration that is directed to those countries be
of the class that is needed. A country that needs farmers, will not gain
anything, but on the contrary if directed to it were a large mass of
artisans and professionals.
The immigration of workers has created a problem of the competition that
is provoked in connection with the national workers, a problem that has
powerfully attracted the attention of the Conferences of Workers, recently
held. In the 6th International Conferences of Trade Unions, which met in
Paris on August 30, 1909 (with an attendance of delegates from Germany,
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, United States, France, Great
Britain, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Rumania and Switzerland),
Gompers( from the United States), maintained the necessity to avoid
emigration to a country that is undergoing economic depression, or where
there is a strike in effect, proposing that those countries that find
themselves in this situation, make it known to the others, so that they
avoid sending workers which will create a worse situation.
As far as if immigration is beneficial to the country that undergoes it,
opinion has changed several times in the course of the last century. Prior
to the strong emigration movement that took place in Europe towards 1840,
the statesmen and economists were worried about the loss of manpower and of
capital that would be presented and requested that a barrier be placed.
Later it has fallen to an extreme opposite, in which the emigration has been
eulogized as a source of incalculable benefits for the emigrants and for the
country from which they left, speaking of it as a powerful means of
political influences in the exterior, opening new markets to commerce and
industry of the mother country and which establishes a sovereign remedy
in the matters of industrial or commercial crisis.
The sending of money by the emigrants to their families and the amounts
that those who returned would bring, are an important element for the
prosperity or the reestablishment of an old country. From 1900 to 1910 the
situation of the countries of the south of Europe (Italy, Greece, Spain and
Portugal) improved sensibly by the sending of funds which the emigrants
made, who departed from them and settled down especially in America.

Translated by Miriam Medina

Source: Enciclopedia Vniversal Ilvstrada Evropeo-Americana
Publisher: ESPASA-CALPE, S.A. Madrid, Barcelona, Spain
Copyright: 1908-1915
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Researched and Transcribed by Miriam Medina

To be continued: Part 13B "Emigration from a different point of View". Next
Article: History of Emigration-Old and Modern.









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