among whom, in 1680-89, there occurred 2,598 marriages, and
in 1840-49 only 659, finds expression in the unfrequency of
marriage, a comparatively small number of women and a small
number of children, all in conjunction with a small
mortality. (Statist. Journ., 1859, 208 ff.) There is no
reason to have recourse here to vice as a cause, and
scarcely to physiological reasons for an explanation,
because these phenomena are accounted for in great part by
the fact that adult males so frequently leave the sect.]
[Footnote 252-5: In this respect, however, there is a great
difference between bondage and slavery. As early a writer as
_Polybius_ speaks of the depopulation of Greece. (_Polyb._,
II, 55; XXXVII, 4.) He looks for the cause in this, that in
every family, for luxury's sake, either no children whatever
were wanted, or at most from one to two, that the latter
might be left rich. (Exc. Vat., 448.) Very remarkable,
_Seneca_, Cons. ad. Marc, 19. Further, _Cicero_, ad. Div.,
II, 5. _Strabo_, VII, 501; VIII, 595; IX, 617, 629.
_Pausan._, VII, 18; VIII, 7; X, 4; _Dio Chr._, VII, 34, 121;
XXXIII, 25. _Plutarch_ claimed that Hellas could, in his
time, number scarcely 3,000 hoplites, while in the time of
Themistocles, Megalis alone had put as many in the field.
(De Defectu Orac., S.) Antium and Tarentum similarly
declined under Nero. (_Tacit_., Ann., XIV, 27.) The
depopulation even of the capital, which began under
Tiberius, is apparent from _Tacit._, Ann., IV, 4, 27.
National beauty also declined with the nation's
populousness. _Æschines_ saw a great many beautiful youths
in Athens (adv. Timarch., 31); _Cotta_, only very few
(_Cicero_, de Nat. Deorum, I, 28); _Dio Chrysostomus_,
almost none at all (Orat., XXI). On the necessary lowering
of the military standard of measure, see _Theod._, Cod.,
VII, 13, 3, _Verget_, de Re milit., I, 5. The depopulation
of the later _orbis terrarum_ is confirmed by the easiness
of the new division of land with the German conquerors.
Compare _Gaupp_, Die Germanischen Niederlassungen und
Landtheilungen (1845), passim.]
CHAPTER III.
POPULATION-POLICY.
SECTION CCLIII.
DENSE POPULATION.--OVER-POPULATION.
The nation's economy attains its full development wherever the greatest
number of human beings simultaneously find the fullest satisfaction of
their wants.
A dense population is not only a symptom of the existence of great
productive forces carried to a high point of utilization;[253-1] but is
itself a productive force,[253-2] and of the utmost importance as a spur
and as an auxiliary to the utilization of all other forces. The new is
always attractive, by reason of its newness; but at the same time, we
hold to the old too precisely because of its age: and the force of
inertia would always turn the scales in favor of the latter. This
inertia, both physical and mental is so general, that perhaps the
majority of mankind would continue forever satisfied with their
traditional field of occupation and with their traditional circle of
food, were it not that an impulse as powerful and universal as the
sexual and that of the love of children compelled them to extend the
limits of both. That man might subdue the whole earth it was necessary
that the Creator should make the tendency of man to multiply his kind
more powerful than the original production-tendency of his earliest
home. The unknown far-away deters as much as it attracts.[253-3] It is
easy to see how the division and combination of labor become uniformly
easier as population increases in density. Think only of large cities as
compared with the country.[253-4] "Under-populated"[253-5] countries,
which might easily support a large number of human beings, and which,
notwithstanding have for a long period of time had only few inhabitants,
are on this account abodes of poverty, regions where education and
progress are unknown. While, therefore, it cannot be questioned that a
nation under otherwise equal circumstances is more powerful and
flourishing in proportion as its population embraces a large number of
vigorous, well-to-do, educated and happy human beings, the last
mentioned attributes should not be left out of consideration.
The possibility of over-population is contested by a great many
theorizers (§ 243); and, indeed, the complaints on this score are in
most cases only a baseless pretext of the inertia which feels the
pressure of the population without being helped and spurred thereby to
an increase of the means of subsistence. This inertia itself, especially
when it governs a whole nation, is a fact which cannot be ignored.
Over-population, as I use the term, exists whenever the disproportion
between the population and the means of subsistence operates in such
away that the average portion of the latter which falls to the share of
each is oppressively small, whether the effect produced thereby
manifests itself in a surprisingly large mortality, or in the limitation
of marriages and of the procreation of children carried to the point of
hardship. Over-population of this kind is, as a rule, curable by
extending the limits of the field of food, either as a result of the
advance of civilization at home, or by emigration.
That the whole earth should be incurably over-peopled is an exceedingly
remote contingency.[253-6] But where, within a smaller circle, by reason
of the great stupidity or weakness of mankind, or by the too great power
of circumstances, over-population cannot act as a spur to new activity,
it is indeed one of the most serious and most dangerous political
diseases.[253-7] The immoderate competition of workmen involves the
majority of the nation in misery, not only materially but also morally;
one of the most dangerous temptations, for the rich to a contempt for
human kind, for the poor to envy, dishonesty and prostitution. In every
suffocating crowd, the animal part of man is wont to obtain the victory
over the intellectual. Precisely the simplest, most universal and most
necessary relations are most radically and disastrously affected by the
difficulty or impossibility of contracting marriage, and the sore
solicitude for the future of one's children.[253-8]
[Footnote 253-1: A map of Europe, which would show the
density of population by the intensity of shade, would be
darkest in the vicinity of the lines between Sicily and
Scotland, between Paris and Saxony, and grow lighter in
proportion to the distance from their point of intersection.
Italy is the country with the earliest highly developed
national economy of modern times, and England that which
possesses the most highly cultivated national economy; as
the Rhine is, from the standpoint of civilization, the most
important river in Europe. It is remarkable, in this
connection, how slowly population increased in all European
countries during the 18th century, and how rapidly after the
beginning of the 19th, and especially since 1825. According
to _Dieterici_ (Berliner Akademie, 16 Mai, 1850), the
population increased annually per geographical square mile:
===========================================================
_In_ |_1700-1800._|_1800-1825._|_1824-1846._
---------------------+------------+-----------+------------
| BY | BY | BY
France | 4 | 16 | 32
Naples, | 15 | 18 | 49
Piedmont, | 6 | 8 | 50
Lombardy, | 19 | 40 | 80
England and Wales, | 16 | 42 | 136
Scotland, | 3 | 16 | 34
Ireland, | 17 | 80 | 77
Holland, | 13 | 14 | 95
Belgium, | 15 | 44 | 136
Prussia, | 7 | 17 | 68
Hanover, | 6 | 12 | 32
Württemberg, | 17 | 12 | 56
Bohemia, | 16 | 27 | 73
===========================================================]
[Footnote 253-2: "The useful rearing of children the most
productive of all outlay." (_Roesler._)]
[Footnote 253-3: Compare _J. Harrington_ (ob. 1677),
Prerogative of a popular Government, I, ch. II; _Sir J.
Stewart_, Principles, I, ch. 18; _Malthus_, Principle of
Population, IV, ch. 1; _McCulloch_ very happily shows how
seldom those who can live comfortably without it are
extraordinarily active. The Malthusian law prevents this
ever becoming the condition of the majority. Precisely
during those years that man is most capable of labor, there
is a prospect of a great increase of outlay, in case one
does not remain single, which would inevitably degrade every
one, a few over-rich excepted, who had not taken care to
provide for a corresponding increase of income. Were it not
for this, human progress would become slower and slower, for
the reason that the _dura necessitas_ would be felt less and
less.]
[Footnote 253-4: According to _Purves_, Principles of
Population, 1818, 456, there were, in England (London not
included):
Column Head Key A: _In the seven most densely populated counties._
B: _In the seven counties of average population.
C: _In the five most sparsely populated counties.
| A | B | C
----------------------------+-----------+---------+---------
Inhabitants per | | |
geographical sq. mile, | 4,904 | 2,229 | 1,061
One man with £60 income | | |
in every |34 inhab'ts| 37 | 77
One man with £200 income | | |
in every | 193 " | 199 | 472
Aggregate of all incomes | | |
over £200 per square mile,| £25,118 | £12,676 | £2,441
----------------------------+-----------+---------+---------
Compare _Rau_, Lehrbuch, II, § 13. Something analogous has
frequently been observed as to taxation capacity. Thus, for
instance, the Hessian provinces paid in direct taxation and
taxation on wines, liquors, etc.; and the density of the
population was in the ratio--
In Rhenish Hessen, 100 100.
In Starkenburg, 65 64.
In Upper Hessen, 64 59.
(_Rau_, Lehrbuch, III, § 280.) In many European countries,
the population has for a long period of time, and in a
comfortable way, increased most rapidly where it has been
densest. Thus, for instance, the kingdom of Saxony was, in
1837, the most densely populated of all the monarchical
states of Germany (6,076 inhabitants per square mile),
Hanover (2,416) and Mecklenburg-Schwerin (2,004) were among
the most sparsely peopled. And yet the annual increase of
population between 1837 and 1858 was greatest in Saxony
(1.36 per cent.) while Hanover (0.44) and
Mecklenburg-Schwerin (0.59) stood very low in this respect.
In very thinly populated countries, nature permits even the
civilized man to deteriorate: thus the French in Canada, the
Spaniard in the valley of the La Plata.]
[Footnote 253-5: This excellent expression seems to have
been first used by _Gerstner_, Grundlehren der
Staatsverwaltung, 1864, II, 1, 176 ff. It must indeed be
distinguished from a rapidly growing, but for the time
being, a sparsely settled country. A nation with an equal
population on a larger surface is, frequently in the
immediate present weaker than another in which the
population is more dense; but it has the advantage of a
greater possibility of growth in the future. Think of the
electorates of Saxe and of Brandenburg in the sixteenth
century. Just as _Thaer_, Landwirthschaftliche Gewerbelehre,
§ 149, advises that a mere annuitant should, values being
the same, rather purchase a smaller fertile estate; a very
able husbandman the reverse.]
[Footnote 253-6: We need only call to mind such facts as for
instance that the United States wealth of coal is 22 times
as great as that of Great Britain. (_Rogers_, The Coal
Formation and a Description of the Coal Fields of North
America and Great Britain, 1858.) In addition to this, only
about 16 per cent. of the combustible material is really
used in the way furnaces are now generally filled, only 10
per cent. in foundry furnaces, and from 14 to 15 per cent.
in the transportation of passengers on railways. The Falls
of Niagara afford a water-power equal to 2/3 of all the
steam engines which existed, a short time since, in the
whole world. (_E. Hermann_, Principien der Wirthschaft,
1873, p. 49, 153, 243.) But that single families, houses,
branches of business, etc. may be over-peopled, and the
impoverishing disproportion between numbers and the means of
subsistence not be susceptible of immediate removal by the
unaided power of the crowded circle, cannot be questioned.]
[Footnote 253-7: _Aristotle_ had recognized the possibility
of over-population. (Polit., II, 4, 3, 7, 4; VII, 4, 5; VII,
14.) _Schmitthenner_, Staatswisensschaften, I, distinguishes
between relative and absolute over-population: the former is
remediable by intellectual and especially by political
development, while the latter borders on the extreme
physical and possible limits of the means of subsistence.
_W. Thornton_, Over-population and its Remedy, 1849, 9,
considers a country in English circumstances over-populated
when a man between twenty and seventy years of age is not in
a condition to support, by means of his wages, 1-1/4 persons
in need of assistance (children under 10, women over 60, and
men over 70 years of age).]
[Footnote 253-8: Thus, for instance, in war, one million of
peasants are infinitely more powerful, especially in case of
a protracted defensive war, than two millions of
proletarians. Alaric's saying: "thick-growing grass is most
easily mowed."]
SECTION CCLIV.
THE IDEAL OF POPULATION.
Hence it was not an erroneous policy that most governments have sought
to promote the increase of population in undeveloped nations. So far as
the influence of the acts of government can reach, such a course must
tend to the earlier maturity of a people's economy. Much more
questionable are positive provisions by government intended to hinder
the further increase of population in a country already supposed to be
fully peopled; if for no other reason, because even the deepest, most
varied and extensive knowledge can scarcely ever predict with certainty
that no further extension of the field of food is possible under the
spur of momentary over-population; and also because questions of
population reach so far into the life and tenderest feelings of the
individual that a government which has regard for the personal freedom
of its subjects, instead of promoting or hindering marriage, emigration
etc. by police regulations, cannot but limit itself to a statistical
knowledge and legislative regulation of these relations.[254-1] [254-2]
Whether the population of a country increase in a well-to-do or
proletarian manner; whether, therefore, the state should rejoice or
lament over such increase, may generally be inferred with some certainty
from the other conditions of the country's economy, especially from the
height of the rate of wages and from the consumption of the nation (§
230). Thus, for instance, the population of England, between 1815 and
1847, increased 47 per cent.; but during the same period the value of
its exports increased 63 per cent.; the tonnage of its merchant marine,
55 per cent.; the amount yielded by the tax on legacies, and therefore
moveable property, by 93 per cent.; the value of immoveable property by
78 per cent. Wherever in agriculture the ancient system of triennial
rotation (_Dreifelder-system_ = _three-field system_) has been exchanged
for the so-called English system, not only is a greater number of men
supported, but, as a rule, each is more abundantly provided for.[254-3]
The construction of new houses is an especially good symptom, because a
habitation is a want which governs many others, and which, at the same
time, may be much curtailed in case of need. Only, there should be no
thoughtless building speculations, the existence or absence of which may
readily be inferred from the ratio between the rent of houses and the
rate of interest usual in the country. In England and Wales there was,
in 1801, one house to every 5.7 inhabitants; in 1821, to every 5.8; in
1841, to every 5.4; in 1861, to every 5.39; in 1871, to every
5.35.[254-4]
The taking of the census at regular intervals in accordance with the
principles of modern science, and with the apparatus of modern art, is
one of the chief means to enable us to form a correct judgment of the
health of the national life and of the goodness of the state.[254-5]
[Footnote 254-1: Compare _R. Mohl_, Polizeiwissenschaft, I,
§ 15.]
[Footnote 254-2: There may be observed a regular ebb and
flow in the opinions of theorizers on this subject. During
the latter, great enthusiasm is manifested over the increase
of population, which is considered an unqualified benefit;
later, over-population gives rise to uneasiness. Not many
had as much insight as Henry IV.: _la force et la richesse
des rois consistent dans le nombre et dans l'opulence des
sujets_. (Edict., in _Wolowski_ in the Mémoires de l'Acad.
des Sciences morales et politiques, 1855.) Thus, for
instance, _Luther_, in his sermons on the married state,
advises all young men to marry at 20, and all young women at
from 15 to 18 years of age. The person who fails to marry
because he cannot support a family has no real confidence in
God. God will not allow those who obey his command to want
the necessaries of life. Werke by _Irmischer_, XX, 77 ff. In
England, great dread of depopulation under the first two
Tudors: 4 Henry VII., c. 19; 3 Henry VIII., c. 8. _J.
Bodinus_, De Rep., VI, is charmed with the Lex Julia et
Papia Poppæa. Its repeal was immediately followed by the
greatest looseness of morals and by depopulation.
On the other hand, a great dread of over-population
prevailed among English political economists at the end of
the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.
They recommended their colonial projects by saying that they
desired to avert this danger. Thus, for instance, _Raleigh_,
History of the World, I, ch. 4; _Bacon_, Sermones fid., 15,
33, and his essay, De Colonies in Hiberniam deducendis.
Compare _Roscher_, Zur Geschichte der englischen
Volkswirthschaftslehre, 24, 26, 31, 34, 42. Similarly, at
the end of the fifteenth century, in highly developed Italy,
which had become stationary. According to _F. Patricius_ (De
Inst. Republ., VI, 4; VII, 12): _incolarum multitudo
periculosa est in omni populo_. Since _Colbert's_ time, the
opposite opinion has become the prevailing one. The densest
population had been observed in the wealthiest and
relatively the most powerful countries, and people thought
they had here sufficient data for a wide generalization. The
thought of military conscription by degrees obtained weight
in this connection. Thus, _Saavedra Faxardo_, Idea Principis
christiano-politici (1649), Symb. 66; _De la Court_,
Aanwysing (1699), I, 9. _Sir W. Temple_, says that the
fundamental cause of all commerce and wealth lies in a dense
population, which compels men to the practice of industry
and frugality. (Works, I, 162 ff., 171, III, 2.) _Imperii
potentia ex civium numero astimanda est._ (_Spinoza_, Tract,
politicus, VII, 18.)
Thus _Petty_ says that 1,000 acres which can support 1,000
men are better than 10,000 which do the same thing. He would
give Scotland and Ireland up entirely, and have the
inhabitants settle in England. In this way all combination
for common purposes would be facilitated. (Several Essays,
107 seq., 147 ff.) Peter the Great is said to have
entertained a similar view: Oeuvres de Frédéric le Grand,
II, 23. More moderate is _Child_, Discourse of Trade, 298,
and still more so in 368 ff.; _Locke_, Works, I, 73 ff.; II,
3, 6, 191. In Germany, _v. Seckendorff_ advises that great
establishments for children should be erected, in which
orphans and even the children of poor parents should be
brought up at the expense of the state, simply with the
object of increasing the number of healthy men. (Teutscher
Fürstenstaat, ed. 1678, 203, Add. 179.) _Becher_, Polit.
Discours, 21, would have murderers punished because they
detract from population, although he elsewhere in his
definition of a city, "a nourishing populous community," is
no blind enthusiast over-population. According to _v.
Horneck_; Oesterreich über Alles, 1684, 29 ff., the third
fundamental rule of public economy is the greatest possible
increase and employment of men. _Vera regni potestas in
hominem numero consistit; ubi enim sunt homines, ibi
substantiæ et vires._ (_Leibnitz_, ed., Dutens, IV, 2, 502.)
According to _Vauban_, Dîme royale, 150, Daire, no child can
be born of a subject by which the king is not a gainer.
Compare 46,145. Numbers of People the greatest riches.
(_Law_, Trade and Money, 209.) Similarly, Law's disciple
_Mélon_, Essai politique sur le Commerce, ch. I, 3. The
number of people is both means and motive to industry
(_Berkeley_, Works, II, 187) and hence the public are
interested in nothing so much as in the production of
competent citizens. (Querist, Nr., 206.) _Süssmilch_, Göttl.
Ordnung, I, Kap. 10; Oeuvres de Frédéric M. IV, 4; VI, 82.
About the middle of the 18th century, we find a whole school
of political thinkers who decide every question from the
standpoint of the influence of the solution on the increase
of population. (Excellently refuted by _Schlözer,_
Anfangsgründe, II, 15 ff.) Thus especially _Tucker_,
Important Questions, IV, 11; V, 5; VII, 4; VIII, 5. Four
Tracts, 70. _Forbonnais_, Finances de France, I, 351, who
considered it one of the principal objects of a good
industrial policy to employ the greatest possible number of
men. _Necker_, Sur le Commerce et la Législation des Grains,
1776. _v. Sonnenfels_, Grundsätze der Polizei, Handlung und
Finanz (1765), in which the principle of population is
called the highest principle of all four sciences of the
state (I, § 25 ff.). These writers understand the "balance
of trade" in such a way, that a nation always operates most
advantageously which gives employment to the largest number
of men with its export articles, (_v. Sonnenfels_, II, § 210
ff., 354 ff.) _v. Justi_, Staatswissenschaft, I, 160 ff.,
says plainly that a country can never have too many men.
According to _Darjes_, Erste Gründe, 379, "even the increase
of beggars brings something into the treasury by means of
the excise tax which they pay." Compare, also, _J. J.
Rousseau_, Contrat Social, III, 9; _Galiani_, Della Moneta,
II, 4; _Verri_, Opuscoli, 325; _Filangieri_, Leggi Politiche
ed Economiche, II, 2; _Paley_, Moral and Political
Philosophy, III, ch. 11. On similar grounds, _A. Young_
laments that the increase of proletarians is greatly
hindered by the English poor laws. (In later writings it is
somewhat different: compare Travels in France, I, ch. 12.)
How deeply such ideas had penetrated public opinion is
apparent from the opening words of the Vicar of Wakefield,
as well as from the declaration of _Pitt_ in parliament in
1796, that a man who had enriched his country with a number
of children had a claim upon its assistance to educate them.
Much more correctly, _Voltaire_, Dict. Philosophique, art.
Population, sect. 2.
The reaction which attained its height in the Malthusians
proper, set in with the Physiocrates and _Steuart: Quesnay_,
Maximes générales, No. 26; _Mirabeau_, Phil. rurale, ch. 8,
and Ami des Hommes (1762), VIII, 84. Similarly, _J. J.
Reinhard_, who calls Baden over peopled "for its present
system of agriculture." (Vermischte Schriften, 1760, I, 1
ff.; II, Varr.) _Möser_ Patr. Phant., I, 33, 42; II, 1; IV,
15; V, 26. Also Minister _v. Stein_: Leben von Pertz, V, 72;
VI, 539, 887, 1184. Compare _supra_, § 242. Of certain
modern economists, it may be said that they deplore and
condemn the birth of every child for whose support there has
not been established a life long annuity in advance. A
remarkable but unsuccessful attempt is made by _Ch. Périn_,
De la Richesse dans les Sociétés Chrêtiennes, at the end of
the first volume, to reconcile the opposing views. Périn
reproaches the Malthusians, and especially _Dunoyer_ and _J.
S. Mill_, with the advocacy of _l'onanisme conjugal_, and
thus desiring to restore the old heathen situation. Only the
Church holds the proper mean between defect and excess,
inasmuch as it permits complete continency or the
procreation of children regardless of circumstances to its
members; while, on the other hand, it, by celibacy and by
the inculcation of industry, frugality, etc., guards against
over-population. (How well the Roman Church has succeeded in
this is best proved by the Roman Compagna!)
In Greece, too, in its first economic periods, especially at
the time that the first colonies were sent out, great fears
were expressed of over-population. _Hesiod_ weighs the
advantages and disadvantages of the married state against
one another with great thoroughness. (Theog., 600 ff.) In
the Cypria, even the Trojan war was explained by a divine
decree, emitted with the intention of removing
over-population.]
[Footnote 254-3: _A. Young_, Political Arithmetik, 160 ff.
In the United States, in ten years, the increase of wealth
to that of population, was as 61:33. (_Tucker_, Progress of
the United States, 202 ff.) As a good measure for the
well-being of the masses, _J. J. Neumann_ recommends the
relative number attending higher schools, also that of
shoemakers, tailors, etc., because the magnitude of the
consumption of wool, leather, etc., can scarcely be directly
ascertained. (_Hildebrand's_ Jahrbb., 1872, I, 283, 294.)]
[Footnote 254-4: Statist. Journ., 1861, 251. In Liverpool,
between 1831 and 1841, the population increased 40 per
cent., and the number of houses 24 per cent., on account of
the large immigration of Irish proletarians. (Edinb. Rev.
LXXX, 80.) According to _Fregier_, les Classes dangereuses,
the number of good buildings continually increased under
Louis Philippe, and that of the worst lodging houses
continually diminished. In Prussia, between 1819 and 1858,
the population increased 60.8 per cent., the number of
houses, 30.1 per cent.; but the insurance-value of the
houses seems to have increased in a still greater
proportion, (_v. Viebahn_, Zollverein's Statist., II, 291,
ff., 299.) According to _Horn_, Bevölk. Studien, I, 62, ff.,
there are to every 100 persons in France, 20 dwelling
houses; in Belgium, 19; in Great Britain, 18; in Holland,
16; in Austria, 14; in Prussia, 12. Too much should not be
inferred from this mere table, as, for instance, in English
cities, a house is, on an average, smaller than in the
Prussian. A French house has, on an average, only 5-1/2
windows and doors; a Belgian house, on the other hand, 3-1/2
rooms. And so, in villages, it is found that there are
uniformly fewer persons to a house than in cities,
especially large ones. In Belgium, for instance, the cities
have to every 100 inhabitants, 66 rooms, the country only
62. In the largest parishes of France (over 5,000
inhabitants), the number of doors and windows is on the
average almost six times as great as in the smallest (under
5,000 inhabitants); but only 4 times as many persons live in
them. (_Horn_, loc. cit. I, 76 ff.)]
[Footnote 254-5: It was very well remarked, even of the
Servian census: _ut omnia patrimonii, dignitatis, ætatis,
artium officiorumque discrimina in tabulas referrentur, ac
sic maxima civitas minimæ domus diligentia contineretur ...
ut ipsa se nosset respublica_. (_Florus_, I, 6, 8.)]
SECTION CCLV.
MEANS OF PROMOTING POPULATION.
The following are the principal means which have been used to
artificially promote the increase of population:
A. Making marriage and the procreation of children obligatory by direct
command. Among almost all medieval nations so strong is the family
feeling, that it seems to men to be a sacred duty to keep their family
from becoming extinct. Where a person is not in a condition physically
to fulfill this duty, the law supplies a means of accomplishing it by
juridical substitution[255-1] at least. Most national religions[255-2]
operate in the same direction, as well as the influence of political
law-givers, who fully share in the contempt for willful old bachelors
and sterile women, which runs through the national feeling of all
medieval times.[255-3] In addition to this, there are the positive
rewards offered for large families of children.[255-4] Even Colbert, in
1666, decreed that whoever married before his 20th year should be exempt
from taxation until his 25th; that anyone who had 10 legitimate children
living, not priests, should be exempt from taxation for all time;[255-5]
that a nobleman having 10 children living should receive a pension of
1,000 livres, and one having 12, 2,000 livres. Persons not belonging to
the nobility were to receive one-half of this, and to be released from
all municipal burthens.[255-6] Such premiums are, indeed, entirely
superfluous. No nobleman would desire 12 children simply to obtain a
pension of 2,000 livres! Colbert himself abandoned this system of
premiums shortly before his death.[255-7] [255-8]
In the case of morally degenerated nations, in which an aversion to the
married state had gained ground, efforts have sometimes been made to
work against it by means of new premiums. Thus, especially in Rome,
since the times of Cæsar and Augustus, although with poor success. It
little becomes one who is himself a great adulterer to preach the sixth
commandment.[255-9]
[Footnote 255-1: In Sparta, impotent husbands were obliged
to allow another man to have access to their young wives.
(_Xenoph._, De Rep. Laced., I. _Plutarch_, Lycurg., 15.)
Compare _J. Grimm_, Weisthümer, III, 42. Great importance of
adoption in Roman law.]
[Footnote 255-2: Thus, the Indian laws of Menu, concerned
principally with the necessity of sacrifices to assure
parents an existence after death. Similarly, Zoroaster and
Mohammed. In the Bible the periods should be accurately
distinguished: I Moses, 2, 18; V Moses, 26, 5; Judges, 10,
4; 13, 14; Proverbs, 14, 28; 17, 6, and the Preacher, 4, 8
apparently agree; also I Corinth., 7, written under
essentially different circumstances but precisely on this
account not in contradiction with those passages of the Old
Testament.]
[Footnote 255-3: Genesis, 30, 23. In Sparta, willful
bachelorhood was almost infamous. (_Plutarch_, Lycurg., 15.)
In Athens, a person might be charged with _agamy_ as with a
crime. (_Pollux_, VIII, 40.) Concerning the ancient
censorial punishments inflicted on those who had no children
and the rewards of prolificacy, see _Valer. Max._, II, 9, 1;
_Livy_, XLV, 15; _Gellius_, I, 6: V, 19. Festus v. Uxorium.
Many German cities made marriage a qualification for the
holding of certain public offices, etc. In some places, the
public treasury was made the heir of bachelors, a custom not
abolished in Hanover until 1732. Compare _Ludewig_, on the
Hagestolziatu (1727), but also _Selchow_, Elem. Juris Germ.,
§ 290. On the fines imposed on old bachelors in Spain,
during the middle ages, see _Gans_, Erbrecht, III, 401 seq.
Recently recommended very strongly by _Hermes_, Sophiens
Reise (3 aufl.), I, 660.]
[Footnote 255-4: Yearly rewards for _polytekny_ in Persia:
_Herodot._, I 136. In Sparta, a father with three children
was relieved of guard duty; and one with four, of all public
burthens. (_Aristot._, Polit., II, 6, 13. _Aclian_, V. H.,
VI, 6.) Between 1816 and 1823, 250 fathers received the
royal gift made to godchildren at their christening in the
district of Oppeln, for the seventh son. (_v. Zedlitz_,
Staatskräfte der preuss. Monarchie, I, 285.) The king of
Hannover paid annually about 900 thalers in such gifts.
_Lehzen_, Hannovers Staatshaushalt, II, 346.]
[Footnote 255-5: Children who had fallen in the service of
their country were considered as still living. Precisely
similar laws had existed in Spain from 1623 (_de Laet_,
Hispania Cap., 4); in Savoy from 1648 (_Keysslers_, Reise,
I, 209).]
[Footnote 255-6: Russian law which required the serf master
to emancipate his male serfs who were not married by their
20th year, and female serfs not married by their 18th. He
could not charge them with desertion in such case, even
where combined with theft. (_Karamsin_, Russ. Gesch., XI,
59.) An ancient Prussian law provides that the country
people shall marry at the age of 25. Corpus Const., March,
V, 3, 148, 274.]
[Footnote 255-7: Lettres, etc. de Colbert, _éd_. Clément,
II, 68, 120. _Voltaire_, Siècle de Louis XIV. ch. 29,
bitterly complains of this; and also _Berkeley_, Works, II,
187, and _Forbonnais_, Finances de France, I, 391. On the
other hand, _Ferguson_, Hist, of Civil Society, III, 4,
asks: what fuel can the statesman add to the fires of youth?
Similarly, _Franklin_, Observations, etc. It should not be
forgotten that the taxes necessary to supply the so-called
marriage-fund, intended to enable poor couples to marry at
the expense of the state, make marriage more difficult for
other couples. (_Krug_, Staats-Oek., 31.)]
[Footnote 255-8: Frederick the Great limited the mourning
time of widowers to 3 months and of widows to 9. His
abolition of ecclesiastical punishment for those who had
fallen, and his prohibition of censuring them under penalty
of fine, was based as much on his population policy as on
philanthropic grounds. (Preuss. Geschichte, Friedrich's M.,
II, 337.) Similarly in Sweden: _Schlözer_, V. W., V, 43. In
Iceland, after a great plague, even in the last century, it
was provided that it should be no disgrace to a young woman
to have as many as six illegitimate children. (_Zacchariä_,
Vierzig Bücher vom Staate, II, 112.) The marshal of Saxony
wished, in the interest of the recruiting of the army, that
marriages should be contracted only for a term of five
years. (Rêveries de Maurice, etc., 345.) The sterile women
of Egypt visit the Tantah, a place of pilgrimage and
fair-town, where, under the cloak of religion, they give
themselves up to unbridled and promiscuous intercourse.
(_Wachenhufen_, vom ägypt. armen Mann, II, 151 ff.)]
[Footnote 255-9: Even in the year 131 B. C., the censor
Metellus demanded that citizens should, for political
reasons be compelled to marry. (_Livy_, LIX, _Sueton._, Oct.
89.) _Aes uxorium_ for bachelors. (_Valer. Max._, II, 9, I.)
Cæsar distributed land by way of preference among those who
had three or more children. (_Sueton._, Cæs. 20.) Augustus'
celebrated Lex Julia et Papia Poppæa sought to urge even
widows to marry again in opposition to the moral public
conscience. (Partly augendo ærario: _Tacit._, Ann., III,
25.) _Dio Cass._, LVI, 1 ff. Trajan did more yet, inasmuch
as he gave great assistance to impoverished parents, even of
the highest classes, to enable them to educate their
children. _Sub te liberos tollere libet, expedit!_ (_Plin._,
Paneg., 26.) Of what little assistance all this really was,
_Tacitus_, Ann., III, 25, IV, 16, and _Plin._, Epist. IV,
15, bear witness. If, under the Cæsars, the damage done to
the childless in the case of inheritance was a frequent
motive of divorce (_Friedländer_, Sittengeschichte I, 389),
the L. Julia, in fact, operated in a direction contrary to
that in which it was intended to work.]
SECTION CCLVI.
IMMIGRATION.
B. Calling for immigrants. This is a means all the more in favor,
inasmuch as it provides the country not only with new-born children, but
with mature men, who frequently, when they come from thickly peopled and
highly civilized countries, promote the industries of the country of
their adoption, and become the teachers of a higher civilization. I need
only mention the inhabitants of the Low Countries, who in the twelfth
century settled as agriculturists in Northern Germany,[256-1] and in the
fourteenth and sixteenth centuries in England, as artisans; the German
miners and inhabitants of cities, who, during the middle ages, colonized
Hungary, Transylvania[256-2] and Poland,[256-3] and the French
Huguenots, who fled to the Independent Protestant countries. Nearly all
the remarkable Russian princes since Ivan III. have endeavored in this
way to induce Germans to settle in Russia, and, for the same reason,
Peter the Great refused to give up his Swedish prisoners of war.[256-4]
The great Prussian rulers have cultivated the policy of immigration on
an extensive scale, and thus maintained the original character of their
parent provinces as the colonial land of the German people.[256-5] [256-6]
Such immigrants have been generally accorded a release from taxation and
from military duty for a number of years; a proper measure since the
state thereby only surrendered an advantage temporarily which it
otherwise would not have possessed at all. Where the land of the state
receiving the immigrants was still almost valueless, it has frequently
been made over in parcels to well-to-do colonists without
consideration.[256-7] Assistance exceeding these limits is a very
questionable boon. It should not be forgotten that the influx of men who
bring no capital whatever with them, and who are not good workmen, is of
no advantage. Nor are they always the best elements of a people who
emigrate. They are very frequently men who, through their own fault, did
not prosper at home, and who come to the new country, with all their old
faults.[256-8] This is, of course not true of those who emigrate from
their attachment to some great principle; for instance, it is not true
of those who emigrate in search of freedom of conscience. These may
become, provided they are in harmony with their new environment, a
support and ornament to their adopted country.[256-9] But there is
always danger that they may not be able to adapt themselves to their new
economic relations, and that thus they may in consequence succumb to the
pressure of circumstances.[256-10]
Oriental despotisms have frequently endeavored to assure themselves the
possession of newly conquered countries by transporting its most
vigorous inhabitants in whole masses to a distant part of their old
empire. Thus, the Jews were carried into Assyria and Babylon; the
Eretrians into Persia; the inhabitants of Caffa by Mohammed II.; the
Armenians by Abbas the Great. The Russians, too, undertook a similar
transportation of people under the Ivans.[256-11]
C. The prohibition of emigration, which, in the case of serfs, vassals
and state-villeins, it seems natural enough, was very usual in periods
of absolute monarchical power. Thus, for instance, Frederick William I.
forbade the emigration of Prussian peasants under penalty of death.
Whoever captured an emigrant received a reward of two hundred
thalers.[256-12] The public opinion of modern times is very decidedly
opposed to this compulsion, which would make the state a prison.[256-13]
"A really excessive population would still find an exit to escape,
namely, through the gates of death." (_J. B. Say._) The statesman, on
the other hand, who opposes the withdrawal of political or
ecclesiastical malcontents should take care, lest he act like the
physician who prevents the discharge of diseased matter from the sick
body, and causes it to take its seat in some vital organ.[256-14] Hence,
even where emigration is considered detrimental to the country, no
governmental condition should be attached to it, except that the person
desiring to emigrate should give timely notice of his intention, and
receive his passport only after it has been shown that he has discharged
all his military duties, paid his taxes and his debts.[256-15] [256-16]
The severe penalties imposed in Athens on emigration, after the defeat
at Chæronea, when general discouragement threatened the state with total
dissolution, belong to an entirely different mode of thought.[256-17]
[Footnote 256-1: _v. Wersebe_, Ueber die Niederlandischen
Kolonien in Deutschland, II, 1826.]
[Footnote 256-2: The immigration of the so-called Saxons
into Transylvania began between 1141 and 1161, in
consequence of the great inundations in the Netherlands.
Compare _Schlözer_, Kritische Sammlungen zur Gesch. der
Deutschen in Siebenb., 1795.]
[Footnote 256-3: In Poland, a multitude of German colonists
established themselves during the thirteenth century on the
domains of the crown and of the church. As a rule, they
obtained the land in consideration of moderate services and
rents, which, however, did not begin to run until after
eight years, nor until after thirty for uncleared land. In
addition to this, they were governed by the German law, and
their communal authorities were for the most part German.
(_Roepell_, Gesch. von Polen, I, 572 ff.)]
[Footnote 256-4: Later, the ambassador of Peter the Great
endeavored to attract into Russia the Swedes, whom the
Russian invasion had prevented from continuing the operation
of their mines, saw mills, etc. (_Schlosser_, Gesch. des 18
Jahrhund., I, 205.) Catherine's colonization, especially on
the Volga and in. Southern Russia, 1765 and 1783. About
1830, the number of the colonists was estimated at 130,000,
mostly Germans.]
[Footnote 256-5: It is estimated that Frederick William I.
spent 5,000,000 thalers in establishing colonists. Up to
1728, 20,000 new families were received into Prussia alone.
_Stenzel_, Preuss. Gesch. III, 412 ff. Frederick the Great
endeavored above all to retain in the country the strangers
who came there periodically. Thus, the harvesters of
Vogtland, in the neighborhood of Magdeburg, and the Vogtland
masons in the suburbs of the capital (1752). Compare _v.
Lamotte_ Abhandlungen, 1793, 160 ff. He is said to have
settled 42,600 families, mostly foreigners, in 539 villas
and hamlets. Besides, the population of Prussia, between
1823 and 1840, increased by 751,749 immigrants, without any
positive favors shown them (_Hoffmann_, Kleine Schriften, 5
ff.), and the greater part of these were not very poor.]
[Footnote 256-6: In antiquity, nothing so much contributed
to the rise of Athens and Rome as their reception of noble
refugees during its earlier periods.]
[Footnote 256-7: In Russia, the Emperor Alexander, in 1803,
promised the colonists a full release from taxation during
ten years, a reduction of taxation for ten more, and freedom
from civil and military service for all time; besides 60
_dessatines_ of land per family gratis, an advance of 300
rubles for housebuilding, etc. and money to enable them to
maintain themselves until their first harvest. The provision
relating to Poland (1833) was much less favorable:
importation of movable property free of duty, freedom from
military duty and from taxation for six years, and perpetual
quit rents (_Erbzinsgüter_) to agriculturists who owned a
certain amount of capital. Brazil promised immigrants, in
1820, land and ten years' freedom from taxation. Compare
_Jahn_, Beiträge, z. Einwanderung und Kolonisation in Br.
(1874), 37 ff. Hungary, in 1723, accorded settlers freedom
from taxation for six years and artisans for fifteen years.
(_Mailath_, Oesterreichische Gesch., IV, 525.) The ordinance
of 1858 affords too little security for non-Catholics and is
not adapted to farmers, but only to purchasers.]
[Footnote 256-8: Many of Frederick the Great's colonists
turned out very badly. They were attracted only by the
premiums offered, and they became dissolute after they had
consumed them. Many of them thought that they were to be of
use only by giving children to the state (_Meissner_, Leben
des Herrn v. Brenkenhof, 1782), and that the land donated
them was to be cultivated by others at the expense of the
state! _Dohm_ mentions villages of colonists which had to a
great extent changed hands four times in 20 years. Whether
the king would not have better attained his object had he
employed the younger sons of Prussian peasants as colonists,
_quære_. (_Dohm_, Denkwürdigkeiten, IV, 390 ff.) Even
_Süssmilch_ says: "A native subject is, in most cases and
for most purposes, better than two colonists." (Göttl.
Ordnung, I, 14, 275.) Compare the work: Wie dem Bauernstande
Freiheit und Eigenthum verschafft werden könne, 1769, 16.
Every family of colonists in South and new East Prussia is
said to have cost the state 1,500 thalers. (_Weber_,
Lehrbuch der polit. Oekonomie, 1806, II, 172); but according
to _Büsching_ (Beiträge z. Regierungsgeschichte Friedrichs,
II, 239), only 400 thalers. _J. Möser_ is strongly opposed
to the encouragement of immigration by direct appeals to it.
(P. Ph., I, 60.) According to _Bülau_,
Staatswirthschaftslehre, 24, only those immigrants are
welcome who are attracted to the country by the whole
character of its national institutions and circumstances. It
is a different matter when, for instance, the government in
New South Wales permits the colonists, by the payment of
very moderate contributions, to have their workmen, friends
and relations come after them from England in ships owned by
the government. Between 1832 and 1858, £1,700,000 were paid
out for such transportation. (Novara-Reise, III, 53.)]
[Footnote 256-9: Dutch Remonstrants since 1619 in Schleswig;
Huguenots established since 1685, in Prussia, to the number
of about 11,000; Waldenses in Prussia since 1686; natives of
Salzburg and of the Palatinate in Prussia. For a state which
is the representative of a religious or political principle,
it may be a matter of honor, and then certainly useful, to
afford an asylum to persons, adherents of that principle.]
[Footnote 256-10: On the German colonists whom Olavides
settled in Spain, in 1768 etc., see _Schlözer's_
Briefwechsel, 1779, IV, 587 ff. See adv.: Ueber Sitten,
Temperament etc., Spaniens von einem reisenden Beobachter in
den J., 1777 und 1778, Leipzig, 1781, p. 260, ff.]
[Footnote 256-11: Canale Crimea, III, 346 ff. _Karamsin_,
Russ. Geschichte, VIII, 97, 424.]
[Footnote 256-12: Ordinance of 1721. Compare _Wolf's_
Vernünftige Gedanken, § 483, who at that time highly
disapproved of such compulsion. Quite the reverse, the
Prussian Landrecht, II, Tit. 17, § 133 ff. On the other
hand, in Spires, in 1765 and 1784, persons of good conduct,
good workmen and others of sufficient means, were forbidden
to emigrate. Prohibition under pain of death, in Spanish
Milan; Novæ Constitut., 29, 145. The work: Les Intérêts de
la France maletendus (1752), 258, advocates the prohibition
of emigration as a species of _les majesté_.]
[Footnote 256-13: _Beccaria_, Dei Delitti e delle Pene,
1765, cap. 52. Similarly, _Mirabeau_, in his congratulatory
letter to Fred. Wil. II., and _Benjamin Franklin_, On a
proposed Act for preventing Emigration: Works, IV, 458 ff.
The Dutch were very early advocates of freedom of
emigration. Compare _U. Huber_, De Jure Civit., 1672, II, 4;
_Pufendorff_, Jus. Natur. (1672), VIII, 11. Theorizers
otherwise the most opposite in their views are here agreed.
_Jeremy Bentham_ says that properly speaking a prohibition
against emigration should begin with the words: We, who do
not understand the art of making our subjects happy; in
consideration that if we should allow them to take flight,
they would all betake themselves to strange and better
governed countries, etc. Des Récompenses et des Peines, II,
310. But also _K. L. v. Haller_, Restauration der
Staatswissenschaft, I, 429 ff., 508, demands most
strenuously that there should be freedom of emigration, for
the reason that every man, without prejudice to any one
else, might seek the state constitution which he wanted, _J.
Tucker_ entirely approved the English law prohibiting the
emigration of workmen. Compare also _J. Bodin_, De Republ.,
I, 6.]
[Footnote 256-14: English prohibition of emigration under
Charles I., 1637. _Rymer_, Foedera XX, 143. The story that
Cromwell and Hampden were thus detained in the country may
be false, however. (_Bancroft_, History of the United
States, I, 445.) Earlier prohibition of emigration of the
Norwegian king in relation to Iceland. (_Schlegel_, Grâgas,
Comment Crit. p. XV.) In ancient Greece, the restriction of
emigration by foreign powers contributed very largely to the
democratization of the mother country. Something similar is
impending over Germany if the present emigration towards
North America should be much weakened by a change of
circumstances there.]
[Footnote 256-15: Many governments require proof that the
person emigrating will be admitted into his contemplated new
home, and that he has the means to cover the expenses of the
journey. The threat of not receiving back returning
emigrants has very little effect, for the reason that it is
the most thoughtless who at the moment of emigration
entertain the most rose-colored hopes.]
[Footnote 256-16: I shall treat of the so-called after-tax
(_Nachsteuer_) in the fourth volume of my System.]
[Footnote 256-17: Compare _Lycurg_., adv., Leocrat. _Cæsar_
forbade all persons of senatorial rank to emigrate out of
Italy; other persons between 20 and 40 years of age were not
to remain absent over three consecutive years at most. For
the same reason, the time of military service was shortened.
(_Mommsen_, R. G., III, 491.)]
SECTION CCLVII.
SANITARY POLICE.
D. Hygienic measures and the improvement of the sanitary police of a
country are of the utmost importance, not only to increase the number of
inhabitants, but also to produce the conditions of population described
in § 246.[257-1]
E. It is the indispensable condition precedent of all the measures which
we have examined, if they would attain their end, that the means of
subsistence of the people should be increased or at least more equally
divided among them. Where this has been done the increase of population
will, as a rule, take care of itself; where it has not, the artificially
increased procreation of children can only produce new victims for the
angel of death. A merely more equable distribution can, however, improve
the condition of the people only in exceedingly rare cases. (§ 204). As
a rule, the diseases which it is attempted to thus cure grow worse, or
they at least increase in extent. (§ 80, ff., 250.) It is quite
different, of course, when the more equable distribution coincides with
an absolute growth of the nation's economy. We shall see, later, that,
for instance, the freedom of land alienation and of industrial pursuits,
when not accompanied by an important advance in the corresponding
branches of economy may do more harm than good; but that under favorable
circumstances a multitude of dormant forces are thereby awakened, and
that then the national-economical dividend may be increased much more
than the divisor. (§ 239. _Roscher_, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, §
99, 139 ff.)
[Footnote 257-1: _Bacon_ in his History of Life and Death,
or of the Prolongation of Life, hopes the better physicians
"will not employ their times wholly in the sordidness of
cures, neither be honoured for necessities only; but that
they will become coadjutors and instruments of the divine
omnipotence and clemence in prolonging and renewing the life
of man."]
SECTION CCLVIII.
MEANS OF LIMITING THE INCREASE OF POPULATION.
A. The means which consists in rendering marriage less easy by
legislation is surrounded with peculiar difficulties in densely
populated countries, which are always highly civilized. The state would
have here to swim against the stream, and it would be generally a much
less difficult task to enlarge the field of food. If there remained from
a former period any inducements held out to promote marriage, it is self
evident that they should now be discontinued. A voluntary bachelor must
now no longer be considered as a man who permits one more woman to
become an old maid, but as one who facilitates marriage to another
couple.[258-1] On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that, for
men, generally, marriage is not only an occasion of increased outlay,
but also an incentive to increased activity and greater economy.[258-2]
Many states have endeavored to condition the founding of a family by
requiring evidence that the father has a prospect of being able to
support one.[258-3] Distinguished theorizers accede to this condition,
inasmuch as they deny the right of over-population.[258-4] But,
unfortunately, it is impossible, except in a few extreme cases, to
assert or deny a prospect of being able to support a family.[258-5] How
easily is the most remunerative power of labor destroyed by physical or
mental disease. Scarcely less subject to change is the so-called certain
opportunity of acquisition afforded by a profession or a trade, when it
is not guarantied by the possession of considerable capital or of landed
property, or by some legal privilege. The amount of property required by
many laws is so small that it alone would suffice to support the family
only for a few years.[258-6] And yet it has been generally provided that
the proof of such a property gave one an unconditional right to
establish a domicile and to marry. It is only where this is wanting that
special consent is required. But who shall exercise this right of
consent? The parish, perhaps, because on it the impoverished family
would fall as a burthen. But it is to be feared that the course of
procedure here would be too severe. Local narrow-heartedness might
refuse the right of domicile to skillful and industrious candidates, who
are in the best situation to maintain a family, but whose competition
the older members of the parish might dread.[258-7] Hence, in most
countries, the parish is treated as a party, on whose protest against
the marriage the state itself decides[258-8] If the state authorities
were to give the immediate decisions in such cases, we might expect, in
ordinary times, a liberality which would frustrate the object of the
law; but sometimes, also, considerable chicanery on grounds of so-called
higher police.
Where there still exist classes and corporations with real independence,
the members of which still attach a real value to the body, the matter
takes care of itself. The journeyman, for instance, voluntarily retards
his marriage until he has become a master workman, and once he has
attained that degree, he "works the golden mine of his trade."[258-9]
But wherever a numerous proletariat exists, the individuals of which
have no better future to expect, whatever their present sacrifices and
self-denial, and who know nothing of class-wants or class-honor,
prohibitions of marriage are severely felt, and are far from being well
enforced.[258-10] The rule which excites least opposition is the fixing
of a normal age for marriage, under which males should not be allowed to
undertake its engagements.[258-11] Of all privileges those attaching to
age are viewed with least aversion. Something similar is effected in
most countries to-day by military conscription, which, on this account,
in young countries, has a very restrictive effect on the increase of
population.[258-12] The best means against thoughtless marriages
certainly consists in increasing the measure of individual wants (§
163); assuming, of course, that the added wants are proper and
worthy.[258-13] There is always the consideration that all limitation of
marriage, even voluntary self-limitation, by decreasing or postponing
marriage, may prove disastrous to morals. It should, however, not be
forgotten that there are other sins besides impurity, and that complete
poverty constitutes one of the worst of temptations. Especially is it
not the angel guardian of chastity.[258-14]
In England[258-15] and France, all governmental hinderances to marriage
have long since ceased, and in Prussia, at least all general police
hinderances; and we can by no means say that the consequences have been
evil. On the other hand, no favorable results as to their influence on
pauperism can be shown statistically from the restrictive laws of
Württemberg. Rather do statistics point here to the unfavorable probable
result of an increase of illegitimate births.[258-16] According to the
law of the North German Confederation of 1868, the contract of marriage,
except in the case of soldiers, officials, clergymen and teachers, is so
free, so far as police influence is concerned, that even actual poverty
is no impediment.[258-17] [258-18] [258-19]
[Footnote 258-1: In Ireland, the unsalaried condition of the
Catholic clergy who depended entirely on marriage fees (as
high as £20 being paid by poor farmers. Quart. Rev. No.
289), baptismal fees, burial fees, etc., operated as an
artificial stimulus to the increase of population under the
most unfavorable conditions. See § 254.]
[Footnote 258-2: It is very noteworthy in this connection
that married people commit relatively fewer crimes than
single persons. Thus, for instance, in Prussia, in 1861, of
every 1,000 unmarried men over 16 years of age, 1.18 were
sent to the house of correction; of every 1,000 married men,
only 0.59; of every 1,000 divorced, 13.71! (Preuss. Statist.
Zeitschr., 1864, 318 seq.) In Austria, 1858-59, there was one
person under sentence in every 203 unmarried persons, in
every 669 married, and in every 1,053 widows and widowers.
Of the married, there was a larger proportion of criminals
among the childless than among those with children (49.8 per
cent. against 42.6 per cent.). Compare _v. Oettingen_,
Moralstatistik, 759. This evidence is all the stronger
since, circumstances being otherwise the same, fathers of
families are harder pressed by cares for food than single
persons.]
[Footnote 258-3: In Würtemberg, the authorities were for the
first time enjoined in 1633, to dissuade people from
untimely marriages; in 1712 the consent of the authorities
to a marriage was made dependent on the evidence of a
religious education and the capacity to support a family.
Between 1807 and 1828, all restrictions on marriage because
of incapacity to support a family were removed. According to
the Bavarian Penal Code of 1751 (I, 11, § 7), persons who
had married without governmental authorization, and who
could not afterwards support themselves except by begging,
were sentenced to at least one year in the workhouse and to
be whipped once a week. Only a short time ago scarcely any
one in Bavaria had a real and unquestionable right to marry.
(_Braun_, Zwangscölibat für Mittellose in _Faucher's_
Vierteljahrsschrift, 1867, IV, 8.) Austrian law relating to
the proof of the certainty of maintaining one's self by
one's trade etc: 12 Jan., 1815; 4 Sept., 1825.]
[Footnote 258-4: _R. Mohl_, in the 3d edition of his
Polizeiwissenschaft, I, 152 ff., requires proof of the
possession of a sufficiency of food, at least of the means
to begin house-keeping. According to _Marlo_, Weltökonomie,
III, 84 ff., and _Schäffle_, Kapitalismus und Socialismus,
689 ff., the compulsory insurance of widow and children
should precede marriage.]
[Footnote 258-5: Thus the Württemberg law of 1833 prohibits
the marriage of those who are under prosecution on account
of repeated thefts, fraud, or carrying on the trade of a
beggar; also all such as have been criminally punished
within the two next preceding years, and all who within the
three next preceding years have received alms from the
public treasury, except in cases of misfortune, of the
causes of which they were innocent. The Bavarian law of
April 16, 1868, gives the parish a right of veto. According
to the royal Saxon ordinance of 1840, male recipients of
alms are permitted to marry only when their marriage makes
an important amelioration of their circumstances probable,
and does away with the necessity of public assistance in the
future.]
[Footnote 258-6: During Iceland's middle age, prohibition of
marriage for all who did not possess at least from 100
ounces of silver or 600 ells _vadhmal_. (_K. Maurer_,
Island, 443 seq.) In Bavaria (July 1, 1831), the right of
domicile is made to depend on a landownership free of debt,
and a _steuersimplum_ of from 1 to 2 florins (in towns more)
in country parishes; on the real (reales) right of carrying
on a trade, or on a personal trade-concession sufficient for
support. A tax of 1 florin in 1852 meant about 1,200 florins
worth of property. In other cases it depended on whether the
parish recognized the existence "complete and permanent of
the means of livelihood." Here good repute and the
possession of a considerable savings bank deposit were to be
particularly considered. In cases of competition, discharged
soldiers who had served out their term, and good servants of
15 years service were to be preferred. In Württemberg (1833)
a sufficient guaranty that a person contemplating marriage
possessed the means of support was: the personal capacity to
exercise a liberal art or to follow a scientific career, to
engage in commerce or agriculture, or some branch of
industry, or follow a trade, with sufficient income
therefrom to support a family; or the possession of a
property, according to locality, of 1,000, 800 or 600
florins. The law of May 5, 1852, was more exacting, and
required, besides personal competency, evidence that one's
calling yielded a sufficient income, as well as of an amount
of property free of debt, of the value of from 150 to 200
florins. In Baden (1831) a property considered sufficient to
insure the means of livelihood amounted in the four largest
cities to 1,000 florins, in 10 smaller ones to 600; in the
remaining communities to 300 florins. In the electorate of
Hesse, the amount (1834) was from 150 thalers (for small
country communities) to 1,000 thalers. (Kassel.) An
irreproachable character is required by many laws (in
Württemburg, since 1832, the good reputation of both
parties), and the community is empowered to dispense with
the other material conditions. Long-continued savings-bank
deposit speaks well for the parties' competency to support a
family, because it bears testimony to an excellent economic
disposition.]
[Footnote 258-7: Remarkable instance in _Rau_, Lehrbuch, II,
§ 15 a., note b.]
[Footnote 258-8: In Bavaria, in 1808, the decision reserved
to the royal boards of police.]
[Footnote 258-9: Those callings in which a certain _esprit
de corps_ prevails such as that, for instance, of officials
and officers, submit willingly to restrictions on marriage
authoritatively imposed. The Catholic clergy submit even to
a full prohibition of marriage. Such measures uniformly
strengthen the isolation of the class from the nation as a
whole. It is well known that, during the middle ages,
theological views on the meritoriousness of all self-denial
made voluntary celibacy very common. The Franciscan order
counted at one time 150,000 monks and 28,000 nuns, the
so-called members of the third order, or penitents, not
included. (_Helyot_, Gesch. der Kloster und Ritterorden, V,
33.) The severity of the laws relating to fasting might
also, according to _Villermé_, be regarded as a "preventive
check." Compare _supra_, § 240, note I.]
[Footnote 258-10: The Prussian law authorizing parents and
guardians to put an interdict on marriages, because of a
want of the necessary means, of vicious habits, disease,
etc., may constitute a check in very good families and
families of the middle class, but scarcely so in proletarian
circles.]
[Footnote 258-11: Besides Württemberg, Baden also prescribed
25 years; in Saxony and Hessen-Darmstadt, 21 sufficed; in
Prussia even 18. _Schäffle_ advocates a minimum age of 25
years for males and 22 years for women (loc. cit.).
Similarly, _Mohl_, loc. cit.]
[Footnote 258-12: Why, hitherto, in Sweden, by way of
exception, military service promoted early marriage, see
_Wappäus_, Bevölkerungsstatistik, II, 357. In France, on the
other hand, the increase of population since 1815 has been
almost exactly in the inverse ratio of the strength of the
military levy. Acad. des Sc. Morales et Polit., 1867, II,
159.]
[Footnote 258-13: _Malthus_, Principle of Population, 10,
ch. 13.]
[Footnote 258-14: _Malthus_, Principle of Population, IV,
ch. 4, 5. It is a great error to suppose that the number of
immoral acts increases and decreases with the frequency of
temptation. In Ireland, farmers very frequently keep their
men servants and maid servants even after the latter have
married. But the very facility with which a fall is
legalized, increases very largely the number of reckless
marriages. (_Meidinger_, Reise, II, 187 seq.) In the country
about Göttingen also, where the people marry much earlier on
an average than in that about Calenberg, illegitimate births
are much more frequent.]
[Footnote 258-15: Even no other legal obstacle which could
make marriage more difficult occurred to _Malthus_, except
that which consists in the refusal of public assistance
after the expiration of a fixed period of time. (Principle
of Population, IV, ch. 8; V, ch. 2.)]
[Footnote 258-16: See the tables in the Tübinger
Zeitschrift, 1868, 624 ff. Thus, formerly, in Rhenish
Bavaria, where there was complete liberty allowed in this
matter, the poor rates compared with the population, were
only 34.6 per cent. of the average in the rest of Bavaria;
and the number of illegitimate births was not so unfavorable
by one-half. (_Rivet_, in the Archiv der polit. Oekonomie, N.
F., I, 39.) The Bavarian law of the 16th of April, 1868,
which provides that the community or parish can object to a
person's marriage only on account of unpaid parish taxes or
poor rates (art. 36) largely increased the number of
marriages and diminished the illegitimate births; in the
first year to 22.2 per cent., in the second to 17, and in
1873 to 13.2 per cent. (Allg. luth Kirchenztg., 12 März,
1875.) According to official statement, this law did more to
improve the condition of workmen in the towns than any other
cause. Compare _Thudichum_, Ueber unzulässige Beschränkungen
des Rechts der Verehelichung, 1868. Per contra, _E.
Schübler_, Ueber Niederlassung und Verehelichung in den
verschiedenen deutschen Staaten, 1855.]
[Footnote 258-17: _Reinhold_ has recommended the direct
limitation of the procreation of children by the process of
_infibulation_ practiced on boys fourteen years of age and
continued until they arrive at a marriageable age or are
able to support illegitimate children. An der Uebervolkerung
in Mitteleuropa, 1827. Ueber die Population und Industrié,
oder Beweis dass die Bevölkerung in hoch kultivieren Landern
stets den Gewerbfleiss übereile, 1828. Ueber das menschliche
Elend, welches durch Missbrauch der Zeugung herbeigeführt
wird, 1828. Das Gleichgewicht der Bevölkerung als Grundlage
der Wohlfahrt, 1829. The ancients proceeded sometimes in a
similar way in the case of slave actors: _Juvenal_, VI, 73.
Compare _Winckelmann_, Antichi inediti, Tav. 188.]
[Footnote 258-18: The obstacles formerly placed in many
countries in the way of the marriage of Jews of allowing
only the first-born to marry, and this only when a vacancy
occurred in the number of families by death (Austria), was
not based on a solicitude about population, but on
religio-national intolerance, in part also on commercial
police grounds.]
[Footnote 258-19: _Fisher_, Gesch. des deutschen Handels
(1785 ff.), still considers war as a remedy for
over-population, but _M. Wirth_, Grundzüge der N. Oek.,
rightly remarks that war destroys not so much children,
women and the infirm as the most productive of the male
population, and immense amounts of capital.]
SECTION CCLIX.
EFFECTS OF EMIGRATION.
B. It is sufficiently evident that emigration from an over-populated
country[259-1] may be attended with good consequences, especially when
it takes place in organized bodies.[259-2] There is little danger that
one who knows how to work and pray will go to the bad in a young
agricultural colony. In a wilderness which has not yet been cleared, the
greater number of proletarian vices spontaneously disappear. There is
here no opportunity for jealousy or theft; little for intemperance, the
gaming table, licentiousness or quarrelsomeness. Here labor is a
necessity, and the rewards of industry and saving soon take a palpable
shape. As the emigrant, in such a situation, can scarcely help marrying,
children far from being a burthen, soon become companions to their
parents in their solitude and, later, helpmates in business. The
colonist belonging to the lower middle class is most certain of
improving his condition. It may, indeed, require many and toilsome years
before he can feel comfortable himself; but his children who would
probably have led a proletarian life in the mother country may calculate
with certainty on future well-being. The father's small capital which
the outlay for education alone would have exhausted at home, here
becomes the seed of a number of prosperous households.[259-3] It is
otherwise with the mass of the people who remain at home. (Compare §
241.)[259-4] It is a matter of much more difficulty than is generally
supposed by those who have not made a study of the matter, that the
yearly emigration from countries like Germany should counterbalance the
excess of births over deaths.[259-5] It is not to be supposed that men
who are really useless at home should be of any service in the colonies.
How violently have not English colonies opposed the advent of settlers
from the poorhouses of the mother country. The classes which are
readiest to emigrate: idlers, fickle characters, fathers of families
with altogether too many children, artisans who by a revolution in
industry have lost the means of making a livelihood, are precisely those
who find it most difficult to obtain employment on the other side of the
water.[259-6] Most colonies refuse to receive persons over forty years
of age at their own expense. But a young man intellectually and
physically able to work, can always make his way even in the old world;
only the weaker succumb under the pressure of over-population. Lastly,
it should be considered what an amount of capital is required for
purposes of emigration and settlement. If emigrants, on the average,
take more capital with them than is estimated to be the _per capita_
amount of capital possessed by those remaining at home,[259-7] the
consequence would be that, as a result of this very successful
emigration, the ratio of consumers to the amount of capital in the
country would become more and more unfavorable. The emigrating portion
of the country might experience the advantage of this, but the great
mass of the population remaining at home would become poorer in capital
and in vigorous men,[259-8] and richer in the comparatively needy. The
comfortless contrast between colossal wealth and beggarly want could
only be thereby increased, since it is almost exclusively the lower
middle class who emigrate to agricultural colonies. The over-rich, as a
rule, will not, and proletarians can not, go thither.[259-9] [259-10]
[Footnote 259-1: Compare _R. Mohl_, in the Tübinger
Zeitschrift für Staatswissenschaft, 1847, 320 ff.;
_Roscher_, Nationalökonomische Ansichten über die Deutsche
Auswanderung in the Deutschen Viertejahrsschrift, 1848, No.
43, 96 ff., the same author's Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und
Auswanderung, 2 Aufl., 1856, 342 ff.; _J. Fröbel_, Die
Deutsche Auswanderung und ihre Kulturhistorische Bedeutung,
1858.]
[Footnote 259-2: Unfortunately, emigration in groups has
recently become very rare, whereas, during the middle ages,
it took place preponderantly, first in armies and then in
communities.]
[Footnote 259-3: According to parliamentary investigations,
the Irish laborer in Australia, Canada, etc., improves in a
few years to such an extent that he can scarcely be
distinguished from the Anglo-Saxon. He becomes industrious,
self-reliant etc. (Edinb. Rev., 1950, 25.) In North America,
however, the Irish seldom become really well off, or occupy
a position of consequence in society. (_Görtz_, Reise, 88.)]
[Footnote 259-4: _E. G. Wakefield_, in other respects so
intelligent a writer on the theory of colonization, is of
opinion that every nation might, by giving a proper
direction to emigration, establish such a density of
population as it desired. Thus, for instance, if there were
10,000 marriages contracted every year in a country, and it
was provided that each of these 10,000 couples should be
sent to some colony immediately after marriage, the whole
mother country would become extinct in from 60 to 70 years.
This extreme is of course not desired by any one; but the
way to be followed in order to attain a desirable limit is
hereby pointed out. That emigration has in so few instances
checked the advance of population, Wakefield accounts for by
the fact that the means furnished to emigration have to a
certain extent been wasted, and that old men, children,
etc., who either had no influence on population as yet, or
could have no more in future, constituted a large proportion
of those who left the country. (England and America.)
Evidently an important consideration is here omitted, viz.:
that there is no such a thing as a normal year of marriages,
etc. If, for instance, all males were to wait until their
30th year, and all females until their 20th, to enter the
married state, and that the government were to send all
competent persons as soon as they had reached this age to
America, what would be the consequence? Numberless
situations affording the means of supporting a family would
be vacant, and a number of young men of 29 and of young
women of 19 would be induced to marry, etc. The number of
children to a marriage in England in 1838-44 was 4.13;
1845-49, 3.96; 1850-54, 3.26; 1855-59, 4.15. (Journal des.
Econ., Oct., 1861.)]
[Footnote 259-5: _Benjamin Franklin_, in 1751, estimated the
aggregate number of English inhabitants in the North
American colonies at 1,000,000, of whom only 80,000 had
immigrated into the country. Hence, from 1790 to 1840, the
United States, the promised land of European emigrants,
received only about 1,500,000 emigrants. From 1820 to 1859,
the number (according to _Bromwell_ and _Hübner_) was
4,509,612; according to a report of the New York Chamber of
Commerce (1874), 9,054,132 since 1824. An annual immigration
of 100,000 was reached for the first time in 1842. According
to the census of 1870, there were in the United States
5,567,229 persons born in foreign countries, of which number
1,690,410 were born in Germany, 1,855,827 in Ireland, and
5,550,904 in England. The aggregate emigration from the
British empire, which unquestionably possesses most colonies
and the largest marine, was, on an average, between 1825 and
1835, only about 55,000; 1836 to 1845, over 80,000; in 1845
alone, over 93,000, while the yearly excess of births over
deaths between 1841 and 1848, according to _Porter_, was in
England and Wales alone, on an average, 169,000. During the
succeeding years emigration received an extraordinary
stimulus (which changed the proportion) in the influence of
the discovery of the Californian and Australian mines, and
in the Irish famine. Hence the emigration was, at least, in
================================
_in_ | _Persons._
-------------------+------------
1847, | 258,000
1848, | 248,000
1849, | 299,000
1850, | 280,000
1852, (maxim.) | 368,000
1853, | 329,000
1855, | 176,000
1857, | 212,000
1858-60, (average)| 96,000
1862, | 121,000
1863, | 223,000
1865, | 181,000
1867, | 105,161
1870, | 202,511
1871, | 174,930
================================
while the excess of births over deaths (in Great Britain
alone) amounted, in 1856, to 309,000. Between 1815 and 1870,
there emigrated from the United Kingdom to the United
States, 4,472,672 persons; to the British North American
Colonies, 1,391,771; to Australia, 988,423; to other points,
160,771; an aggregate of 7,013,637. (Statist. Journal, 1872,
115.) On the other hand, between 1861 and 1871, 543,015
persons either returned or immigrated to the United Kingdom.
It is estimated, (according to _Hübner's_ Jahrb. der
Volkswirthschaft und Statistik, 263 ff.; VIII, 222, and the
Rudolst. Auswandererzeitung) that in no year before 1844
were there more than 33,000 emigrants from Germany. On the
other hand, in
====================================
_in_ | _At least._
-------------------+-----------++---
1844, | 43,000
1845, | 67,000
1846,- | 94,000
1847, | 109,000
1848,- | 81,000
1849, | 89,000
1850,- | 82,000
1851, | 112,000
1852, | 162,000
1853, | 156,000
1854, (maxim.) | 250,000
1855. | 81,000
1856. | 98,000
1857, | 115,000
1858-61, (average)| 4,620
1866, | 137,000
1867, | 151,000
|
By Hamburg and |
Bremen alone-- |
1867-71, (average)|33,355 & 48,296
1872, |57,621 & 66,919
1873, |51,432 & 48,608
1874, |24,093 & 17,913
====================================
while the natural increase of population in Prussia alone
(1843-55) amounted to almost 150,000 per annum; in the
kingdom of Saxony (1834-49), to over 18,000; in
Austro-Germany and the five German kingdoms together,
305,000. (_Wappäus_, Bevölkerungsstatistik, I, 133.) In New
York alone, in 1852, 118,600 Germans arrived; in 1853,
119,500; in 1854, over 178,000. That, at present, emigration
is, on the whole, so much more frequent than formerly, is
accounted for by the largely improved means of
communication. However, it was estimated a century ago, that
Europe sent at least 100,000 persons per annum to the East
and West Indies. Between 1700 and 1719, an aggregate of
105,972 persons emigrated to the Dutch East Indies; between
1747 and 1766, 162,598. (_Saalfeld_, Gesch. des Holländ.
Ostindiens, II, 189.) It should not be ignored, however,
that the readiness to forsake the fatherland, which only a
short time ago was so usual in Germany (in England, it
prevails chiefly among the Irish), justified the greatest
solicitude for the roots of German national life. How little
Germany really suffers from over-population, is shown
especially by the circumstance that, for instance, in
Prussia, it is precisely the most densely populated
districts to which immigration is largest. Compare _v.
Viebahn_, Zollverein. Statist, II, 242.
According to _C. Negri_, about 40,000 Italians emigrate
every year at present; and it is said that there are, in
Turkey, Egypt and Tunis, 70,000; in Peru, 14,000, and in
Buenos Ayres, 84,000 Italians living. (I, Jahresbericht der
Hamburg, geogr. Gesellsch., 1874.) In other Romanic and
Slavic countries emigration is as yet insignificant. On the
other hand, there were, in 1870, 214,574 native
Scandinavians in the United States.]
[Footnote 259-6: While the most active demand for labor, for
instance, existed in Australia generally, three government
ships carrying emigrants arrived: one with English
agricultural laborers, the second with former factory hands,
the third with Irish. The agricultural laborers found places
very rapidly a few days after their arrival; the factory
hands did only tolerably well, while of the poor Irish not
one-half could find anything to do, and became a burthen on
the benevolence of the public. (_Merivale_, Lectures on
Colonization and Colonies, II, 30 ff.)]
[Footnote 259-7: It is estimated that the first 21,200
settlers of New England brought about $1,000,000 with them.
(_Bancroft_, Hist. of the United States.) The 50,000
emigrants who came to Quebec in 1832 were estimated to be
worth $3,000,000. It is thought that German emigrants to
America, bring with them, on an average, 280 thalers, to
which must be added 40 thalers passage money. This seems
very high, while German estimates are generally too low,
because no emigrant has any interest to overestimate his
property, but frequently to underestimate it. Thus, for
instance, in 1848-49, 8,780 persons emigrated from Prussia
with 1,713,370 thalers of property, i. e., 195 thalers each.
(Amtl. Tabellen, f., 1849, I, 290.) It is said that between
1844 and 1851, 45,300 persons emigrated from Bavaria with
governmental consent, and that they carried with them
property to the amount of 19,233,000 florins; that is, 424
florins each. (Beiträge zur Statistik des Kgr. Bayern, III,
322 seq.) Here the average amount of means carried away by
emigrants seems to decrease; a sign that the mass of those
emigrating come from successively lower strata of the
population. (_Hermann_, Bewegung der Bevölk., 26 seq.)
A still smaller amount of capital would suffice for the
purpose of emigration itself. Persons who settled in Canada
(1823) cost the English nation £22 per capita, which amount
provided them with cows, seeds, agricultural implements,
help in building, and food for twelve months. According to
the Edinburg Rev., Dec., 1826, only £15, 4s. were necessary
for the same purpose. If it be borne in mind that many of
these settlers afterwards caused five times as many
relatives to come over at their own expense, the necessary
outlay per capita would seem very small indeed; frequently
not more than one year's maintenance in the poorhouse would
have cost. Almost £1,000,000 are sent every year from the
United States through banks and emigration bureaus, by
emigrants, to the United Kingdom, to bring over their
relatives. (Statist. Journal, 1872, 386.)]
[Footnote 259-8: It is said that in Mecklenburg agricultural
labor has much deteriorated because the strong men emigrate
and because the old and children remain at home.
(_Bassewitz-Schumacher_, Comm. Bericht über die Verhältnisse
der ländl. Arbeiterklassen, 1873.)]
[Footnote 259-9: _J. S. Mill_, indeed, thinks that even
where there is a larger emigration of capital than of men,
the combined pressure which both exert on the natural forces
of the country emigrated from must become less. (Principles,
IV, ch. 5, 1.) Compare _Hermann_, loc. cit. 28 ff. _Hermann_
also shows very clearly how emigrants to America would
frequently like to return; but the expense of returning
deters them from the undertaking, and they manage to get
along by great effort, which, however, would have afforded
them a livelihood if they had remained at home. Staatsw.
Unters. II, Aufl. 480.]
[Footnote 259-10: Against real over-population, the
emigration of women would be much more effective than that
of men; and yet the emigration of the latter occurs much
less frequently in large numbers. Thus, between 1853 and
1858, 3,694 males emigrated from Saxony and only 2,609
females. Between 1866 and 1874, there were 1,754,231 male
immigrants to the United States, and only 1,147,446 females.
According to _Rümelin_ (Allg. Ztg., December, 1865), the
large emigration from Württemberg produced by the years of
scarcity--1850 ff.--left such a preponderance of women that
1/6 of all the young women who have reached a marriageable
age at present, would remain unmarried, even if all the
marriageable young men were to engage in matrimony. Thus
negative emigration does very little to cure the social
disease of involuntary celibacy.]
SECTION CCLX.
COLONIST EMIGRATION.
All these dangers disappear when the portion of the nation which has
emigrated continues economically connected with the body of the nation
remaining at home. (Colonizing emigration.) Here emigration not only
provides "elbow room" in the mother country, but there arises at the
same time an increased demand for manufactured articles, an increased
supply of raw material, by means of which an absolute growth of
population is made possible.[260-1] England has hitherto enjoyed these
advantages to the fullest extent, Germany scarcely at all. German
emigrants to Russia, America, Australia, or Algiers, were, together with
all they have and are, for the most part lost to their fatherland. They
become the customers and suppliers of foreign countries, and frequently
enough the competitors and even enemies of Germany.[260-2] [260-3]
It might be very different if the stream of German emigration was
directed towards German colonies for instance, as happened in later
medieval times, towards the fertile but thinly populated parts of
Hungary, towards the provinces of Austria and Prussia; perhaps, as List
wished, towards those parts of Turkey which, God willing, shall yet
constitute the inheritance of the German people. Thus, through the
instrumentality of emigration, might a new Germany arise, which would
directly or indirectly and necessarily ally itself to the old,
politically, and at the same time constitute the surest bulwark against
the danger from Slavic power.
Politico-economically, this country might be utilized by Germany as the
United States uses the Mississippi valley and the Far West, especially
as concerns the exclusiveness of the use. It is true, that emigrants
could be invited to these quarters in good conscience only when the soil
had been prepared for them. They should find there, on their arrival,
complete legal security, especially for the landed property to be
acquired by them; likewise, at least, full personal, religious, and also
commercial freedom.[260-4]
It may be asked, whether there are places in the other quarters of the
world adapted to German colonization in the higher sense of the word.
These should of course be countries adapted to agriculture as practiced
by the Germans,[260-5] with an easily accessible coast and provided in
the interior with navigable streams. Here the Germans should be able not
only to live together in large numbers, but the rest of the population
should be inferior to them in political training and in national
feeling. Otherwise, there would in time be danger of their losing the
German character and feeling.[260-6] The difficulty of establishing
German colonies in the southern temperate parts of Chili and Brazil
would be aggravated by the very same causes which prevented the creation
of a German navy for centuries; and they would almost certainly have to
calculate on the jealousy of all other colonial powers and of the United
States.[260-7] We should not forget that from Raleigh's time to the
present, almost every speculation having for its object the founding of
a colony, whether originating with individual capitalists or with
joint-stock companies, has been, considered from a mercantile point of
view, a failure. The fruits of new colonization are generally reaped in
the succeeding generation; and such delay is scarcely in harmony with
the ideas of our own times. Almost every settlement has had its critical
period when the settlers almost despaired. This produced less harm in
the 17th century; for they were for the most part compelled to
persevere. In our day, they would probably disband and go in search of
an easier life in colonies already existing. And yet, Germany must make
haste if it would not soon see the last appropriate locality occupied by
other and more resolute nations.[260-8] [260-9]
[Footnote 260-1: As _Torrens_ shows there is no kind of
trade that so much promotes production, or which is so
capable of growth as the exchange of the means of
subsistence and raw materials against manufactured articles.
The Budget: On Commercial and Colonial Policy, 1841 ff.]
[Footnote 260-2: Care should be taken not to allow one's
self to be misled here by relative numbers. In the United
States, the amount of imports was, from--
===========================================================
|_The British_| _France._ | _Germany without_
| _Empire._ | | _Austria._
------------+-------------+-------------+------------------
1840-41, | $51,000,000 | $24,000,000 | $2,450,000
1849-50, | 85,000,000 | 27,600,000 | 8,780,000
1859-60, | 138,600,000 | 43,200,000 | 18,500,000
===========================================================
Hence, absolutely, the German exports increased in 19 years
only about $16,000,000; the French (without any emigration),
over $19,000,000; the English, more than five times the
German. Of the 30,633 emigrants who sailed from Bremen in
1874, only 72 did not go to the United States. (D. Ausw.
Ztg., 5 Jul., 1875.) The total exports of the United Kingdom
to its colonies amounted, 1840-44, to an average value of
£7,833,000; 1865-69, to £27,146,000; while those to foreign
countries amounted, during the same periods of time, to only
from £28,871,000 to £93,558,000. English colonial trade
amounted, in 1866, to £6 2s. per capita of the colonial
population; the trade with the East Indies, to only 9s. 7d.
per capita of the East Indian population. (Statist. Journal,
1872, 123 ff.)]
[Footnote 260-3: There has hitherto been little to rejoice
over in the condition of German emigrants. The greater
number of them had received so little education that they
were by no means in a way to oppose the weapons of attack of
Anglo-Americans. The glorious literature of their old home
scarcely existed for them. Almost the only national
peculiarity which they held to with any tenacity was the
disposition to a want of union among themselves. Hence they
were necessarily de-Germanized in a few generations, after a
toilsome and quarrelsome period of transition. How seldom,
even in Ohio, did German names occur in the list of public
officials, while in New York the number of German names on
the poor list is very considerable. The situation, however,
seems to have improved in modern times, and the national
coherency and political power of the mother country have
gone hand in hand with the revival of attachment on the part
of the emigrants to the land of their nativity. How
beautifully was this attachment manifested during the
Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71!]
[Footnote 260-4: Compare _Fr. List_, in the D.
Vierteljahrsschrift, 1842, No. IV. _Dieterici_, über Aus-
und Einwanderungen, 1847, 18.]
[Footnote 260-5: No Mosquito-coast!]
[Footnote 260-6: How tenaciously have the Germans held to
their nationality in Transylvania and the Baltic provinces,
and how rapidly they lost it in Pennsylvania!]
[Footnote 260-7: On emigration to Brazil, see _v. Tschudi's_
report of Oct. 6 to the Swiss parliament, 1860.]
[Footnote 260-8: Think only of the project of the Belgian
East Indian Company, which Austria could not carry out at
the beginning of the preceding century. Proposition by
_Fröbel_ (loc. cit., 87 ff.) that England and Prussia should
together found a German colony in the valley of the La
Plata, to which _Wappäus_ rightly objects, that there are
few places there in which peasant emigrants would like to
acquire land. (Mittel- und Südamerika, 1866, 1027.)]
[Footnote 260-9: Compare _Wappäus_, Deutsche Auswanderung
und Kolonisation, 1846.]
SECTION CCLXI.
STATE AID TO EMIGRANTS.
The inquiry, What can the state reasonably do for emigration, must, of
course, receive a very different answer according as there is question
of merely negative (§ 259) or colonizing emigration (§ 262). To give the
latter a proper impulse requires so great an outlay of capital and labor
that it can be made only by the state; and in Germany, on a large scale,
only by a union of several states. We must not here deceive ourselves.
Emigrants will go uniformly where they have the nearest prospect of a
comfortable future. Whether in emigrating they shall continue their
connection with their old home, or whether their children shall be
completely denationalized is a matter with which very few emigrants
concern themselves; and considering the amount of education they
generally possess, this need excite no surprise. Hence, if Germany would
unite its departing children in a colony permanently German, and
therefore new,[261-1] it would be necessary for it to offer them, at its
own expense, at least the same advantages which they would find in older
and fully established colonies. He who would reap should not endeavor to
evade the sacrifice incident to the sowing.[261-2] Even great sacrifices
in this direction would certainly be richly rewarded if properly made.
Probably the outlay would never be directly returned to the national
treasury; but there is all the more reason, on this account, that there
should be an indirect return by the increase of duties and other
indirect taxes.
On the other hand, the costly assistance of the state in the case of
merely negative emigration would, as a rule, be folly. Who would compel
the children of the great national family, who necessarily or
voluntarily remain faithful to the paternal roof, to pay tribute to
those who turn their backs on the old home for ever? The wealthy
especially who remain in the country have to put up with the
disadvantage of paying higher wages for labor.
Simple humanity requires that the state should not be blind to the
movement of emigration, nor abandon it to all the risks of improvident
liberty. Hence it should endeavor to remove the ignorance prevailing on
questions of emigration. It should require personal and other guaranties
that emigration agents are not simply dealers in men, and that the
contracts made with ship-owners by emigrants are really performed. It
should exercise a strict superintendence over the mode of transportation
of emigrants, and see to it that its consuls accredited to America, etc.
assist 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
principal 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 entitled to receive and contract with emigrants for
passage; to each passenger shall be allotted a space of at least twelve
square feet of surface and six feet high; provision shall be made for
the longest possible time of passage; 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 passengers saved, and pay them
an additional sum of from twenty to forty thalers, according to the
length of the passage, 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_ (Tübinger 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 institution 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 passed
================================================================
| _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, | 2,50 " |
================================================================
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 Messiliæ 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 _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.]
[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 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.]
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 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]
[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,
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.)]
[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 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:
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 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]
[Footnote 262a-1: The locust-like emigration from Ireland to
England takes three principal 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 Württemberg 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 (_Frühling_, N.
Landwirthsch., Ztg., 1870, 451 ff.) Galicians go into the
Polish plains, and Poles into the Prussian low country (_v.
Haxthausen_, Ländl. Verfassung, 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 für Statistik, 1848, 522.) In
the Canton of Tessin, over 11,000 passes 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. à 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 constitute 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. (_Röder und Tscharner_, C.
Graübundten, 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 Osnabrück 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. Möser_, 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, Osnabrück 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 classes,
first in America and Australia, and then indirectly in
Europe, _quære_. 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 principal cities of Europe have had their origin.
(_Röder und Tcharner_, C. Graudbundten, I, 56.) The practice
of engaging mercenaries as troops was of great assistance,
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 constituted 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 emancipation 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
circumstances which must be surrendered for the sake of progress are
generally synonymous with the interests of some class. This class
opposes the improvement, and a struggle becomes necessary to carry it
out. But under certain circumstances, 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 constitution, 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 Progrès de l'Esprit humain, especially
Epoque X, in which he treats of future progress.
Nevertheless, he obscurely alludes (Oeuvres, 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).
_Carey_, also, relying on the assumption that more fertile
land is brought under cultivation as civilization advances,
allows us to see no limits whatever to this growth. (Past,
Present and Future, ch. 3.) Still more clearly is the
principle of unlimited and continually accelerated growth
laid down in his Principles of Social Science, I, 270.
_Carey_ illustrates this principle by means of the example
of the continually accelerated motion of a falling body,
without noticing the practical _ad absurdum deductio_
involved in it, that at the end of the thousandth second a
falling body reaches a velocity of 1,000,000 feet. (loc.
cit., 204.) But even in England, at present, we find such
thoughts at times. _Banfield_, for instance, can scarcely
understand how the relative rates of wages, interest and
rent can decrease, except by an increase of their absolute
amounts. See his Organization of Industry, passim. And so
_v. Prittwitz_ entertains the most rosy-colored hopes. He
has no doubt that all governments which are still bad will
see the error of their ways and correct them. (Kunst reich
zu werden, 79.)
The growth of capital and even of human wealth in general is
capable of indefinite increase (81). The rate of interest
would sink almost to zero if so much capital were
accumulated that no "undertakers" could be found who care to
use it (305). Large farming will entirely cease in the
future (307), and when the system of railroads is entirely
completed, the whole earth will present the appearance of
one immense park (29). He would allay all fear concerning
the exhaustion of combustible material by pointing out the
possibility consequent upon improved means of communication,
that a great many of the inhabitants of the colder regions
of the earth might migrate in winter to a warmer climate
(21). At the same time, artesian wells might be made to
bring to the surface the internal heat of the earth, or
metallic plates connected with the wings of a windmill,
might be made to generate heat by their friction on one
another (22). See the same author's Andeutungen über
künftige Fortschritte und die Gränz en der Civilization, 21
Aufl., 1855.]
[Footnote 263-2: According to § 165, we might say: where the
product of the workman last employed is not sufficient to
meet his own wants. Thus _J. B. Say_ says that only that can
be considered a product, the utility of which is at least
equal to its cost. He makes use of the example where a three
days' journey is necessary to obtain the food requisite for
one. As the limits of production he gives the following: too
few human wants; too costly methods of production; too high
taxes, natural obstacles created by infertility or too great
distance. (Traite I, ch. 15. Cours pratique, I, 349.)]
[Footnote 263-3: _D. Hume_, Discourses, No. 3, On Money.]
[Footnote 263-4: England is especially well situated in this
respect, in consequence of its excellent commercial position
and its surplus of the principal auxiliary products, such as
coal, iron, etc. Should the coal-beds of such a
manufacturing country be ever entirely exhausted, it is
scarcely possible to see, from our present point of view,
how the most rapid and most frightful decline of its
national economy could be averted! Compare the opening
address before the British Association, by Armstrong, at
Newcastle (1863), who prophecies the exhaustion of the
English coal-beds in 212 years at the rate at which coal had
been consumed during the eight preceding years. According to
the report of the royal committee on the coal question
(1871, vol. III), Great Britain has still attainable
deposits, that is 4,000 feet deep, 90,207,000,000 tons of
coal in its coal beds already known; and in beds not yet
worked, 56,273,000,000 tons. Compare, also, _Jevons_, The
Coal Question (1866). It is estimated that the most
productive French coal-field will be exhausted in 100 years.
(_M. Chevalier_, Rapport du Jury international de 1867,
57.)]