Page images
PDF
EPUB

to account for the 288,600 Frenchmen born in France who are now borne on the census returns of North and South America (see Table A). Furthermore, these French emigration figures take no account at all of land-migration, and thus ignore completely 52,200 French who live in Belgium, 17,300 who have chosen Germany for their workshop, 10,800 who are in Italy, 17,600 in Spain, and nearly 59,000 who live within the Swiss frontiers. In all, nearly 483,000 French born in France are in the position of emigrants all over the world, and although the total is less than that furnished by Belgium, and but little in excess of the numbers placed to the credit of Spain and Portugal, it must be taken into account, and, when set against the 1,001,090 foreigners who are inside French boundaries, reduces the balance to the debit of France to 518,000.

The Rev. Mr. Malthus chiefly devoted his speculations to the consideration of flourishing races with rapidly increasing populations, his goal, adopted from the American colonies, being duplication in twenty-five years. But he wholly omitted to consider among his 'checks' positive or preventive, whether war, disease, or vice-he completely left out of sight such an undoubted fact as the decay of races, the dying-out of a people, as so many families die out, because of a failure of fertility, no matter to what complexity of causes that failure may be due. Vicious irregularities may have a partial or an extensive effect in the direction of a check; but an economist must be slow to believe that a whole nation of thirty-seven millions, or, omitting children, twenty-seven millions of greatly differing characters and origins, can, by individual but universal assent, keep down the population; and even if they did so it would be, after all, only the strongest, the ultimate evidence of the weakening of the procreative instinct, and therefore of the certain dying-out of the

race.

At the same time Malthus avowed his desire for a longer life for the living, and fewer births for the sake of fewer deaths. Had he prophesied this for France, it would have been a wonderful hit, for there the average duration of life has risen from 28 to 37 years since the beginning of the century, while the annual deaths have fallen from 276 in 10,000 to 223. At the same time the annual births have also fallen from 318 in 10,000 to 249, while the number of marriages remains the same. Thus it may safely be said that the present apparent small increase in the population-29 per 10,000 annually, as shown above-is, in reality, not an accession of new lives, but chiefly a postponement of the termination of old ones. Had the death-rate remained as it was in 1801-10, the population would now be actually diminishing at the rate of 27 per 10,000 (276-249). The causes of the decrease of the death-rate are various, but not complex. The advance of applied medical and sanitary science counts for something; and the doubling of the pro

duction of meat, corn, and almost everything else, has brought greater plenty and comfort. It is calculated that the total supply of food from home and foreign sources is fourfold what it was fifty years ago, while foreign trade has been multiplied by six. As regards individual wealth, M. Levasseur made a very cautious estimate, eleven years ago, when he said it had more than doubled since 1800. And with all this the annual number of marriages has remained stationary, and their total, including the widowed, falls far short of the English rate, being but 2,803 per 10,000 against England's 4,488.

It is impossible to quit this subject without a word upon the size of French families. The average number of births to ten marriages was forty-two, from 1801 to 1810; it is now but thirty, that is three to each marriage; and of course one death among the three would leave the population stationary. Last year free schooling was voted for the seventh child in every family that had so many, and this measure resulted in the discovery of 213 such families, 107 of which had more than seven, and 4 as many as thirteen children each. The fourth fargard of the Vendîdâd supports the assertion of Herodotus (i. 136) that the ancient Persian monarchs gave prizes to those who had most children. In 1798 Pitt brought in a bill for extending relief to large families, and Malthus argued against it that if by artificial encouragement a Government increases the mouths without increasing the food, it only brings the people nearer to starvation; and though stalwart numbers are a strength, starving swarms are a patent weakness. But this style of argument cannot apply to contemporary France, where the general and individual wealth and comfort are, as has been shown, considerable and notorious.

Italy. Although Italy has of recent years been making serious progress in the direction of consolidation, and has shown singular national common sense in devoting herself to the process of settling down after her long revolutionary struggles, the generality will be somewhat unprepared to receive the large scale of her emigration. Her excellent statistical tables of 1881 show no less than 1,077,000 Italians residing in other countries. South American States absorb the largest proportion of these, namely 403,000; and next comes France, where public works attract vast numbers of Italian labourers, with 241,000; the United States with 176,000, and Africa with 62,000. Emigration is going on at an increasingly rapid pace; 147,000 having left the mother country in 1884, including 33,000 for Austria-Hungary, 38,000 for France, and 44,000 for South America. Taking the population of Italy at 29,361,000, we find that those living abroad are equal to 3.67 per cent. on that total; and as there are only 60,000 foreigners resident in Italy, she can claim a credit balance on the general world account of over a million, thus coming third among the great emigrating European countries, and being outstripped only by England and Germany.

Russia. If home-ruled Finland be excepted, statistics of the foreigners resident in unwieldy Russia have not been obtained. From the census returns of other countries, it is found that 148,000 Russians and Poles are living out of their country. The United States contained in 1880 the largest proportion of these, namely 36,000 Russians and 48,000 Poles; and 20,000 Russians entered the States in 1884. Germany follows with 15,000. In England and Wales there are some 11,000 Poles.

Spain and Portugal.-The Peninsula can claim 453,000 of its inhabitants in foreign countries, thus very closely approaching France, although the gross population is two-fifths less (population 21,743,093). South America absorbs the vast majority of Peninsular emigrants (337,000), France holds 75,000, and the United States figure for 28,000. Portugal sent abroad 133,000 in the ten years 1872-81, of whom 130,000 were for America.

Switzerland. The indefatigable, money-loving, and thrifty Swiss are to be found in many countries. Table A reckons up 207,000 of them, equal to a percentage of 79 on a net population of 2,635,000. It is, however, somewhat surprising to find at the same time no less than 211,000 foreigners in the cantons, and this not in the tourist season, when Tartarin is on the Alps, but in December 1880. The conclusion is that these large numbers have actually settled in Switzerland, and on analysing the total it is found that the great majority come from adjoining countries: 90,000 from Germany, 59,000 from France, 42,000 from Italy, and 13,000 from Austria. This results in a small balance of 15,000 against the Swiss. The emigration figures, which can scarcely be complete, were 13,500 in 1883, and only 8,900 in 1884.

[ocr errors]

Asia. The vertical column headed Asia,' and the horizontal lines for 'Chinese' and 'Other Asiatics' in Table A, necessarily contain information of a most rudimentary and unsatisfactory nature. For instance, the largest item-1,351,828 Chinamen-consists mainly of a mere guess that there are a million Chinese in Siam, the balance being taken from the Dutch statistics of Java and Madura. The total of 1,512,000 gives but a faint idea of the swarms of industrious and yellow men who continually issue forth from the populous middle kingdom. The number of Chinese who entered the United States up to 1884 was 289,024, but in that year only 8,420 immigrated. The 50,032 Asiatics shown in Peru are probably for the most part Chinese. Coolie emigration from India, for the Mauritius, Réunion, Natal, English and French Guiana, the English and French West Indies, the Fiji Islands, and Surinam is now 18,000 a year; it has been as high as 25,000 (1875).

Africa. The African statistics must also be considered incomplete, consisting, as they do, chiefly of Egyptian, Algerian, and Tunisian figures only, if we except the case of those English popula

tions for which vol. iv. (p. 106) of the Census Papers of 1881 has been combined with other information.

America. We shall do no more than direct attention in a general way to the large number of born foreigners who are now in the American continents, North and South. They amount to more than thirteen millions, out of our gross totals of nearly nineteen millions. United States immigration, which first sprang into great activity in the decade 1841-50, reached its highest point, 730,000-2,000 a day' in 1882. In 1884 it had sunk temporarily, no doubt, to 461,000. At the same time, it will be seen that these immigrant hosts have by no means permanently settled down, for 3,529,000 Americans now live outside their proper countries. It is to be regretted that the inconsistent modes of framing its statistics adopted by different countries preclude a complete analysis of the figures, which there was no choice but to amalgamate for the United States, Mexico, the rest of North America, and South America. The emigration from Canada to the States is noteworthy; a million having crossed the frontier before 1884, and 48,000 more in that year. Forty-four per cent. of the Canadian immigrants of 1881, '82, '83, passed on to the States. There are, per contra, 78,000 natives of the States in the Dominion. It is a significant fact that Mexico now holds nearly two millions of born Europeans, or 38 per cent. of her population. As regards South America, Brazil showed an immigration, at Rio de Janeiro, in four recent years, of 93,000 Europeans, chiefly Portuguese, Italians, and Germans. But this is far surpassed by the Argentine Republic, which received in the same years 278,000 immigrants, mainly from Italy, Spain, and France. The numbers for 1884 were 103,000, whereas Brazil had only 18,000 in that year. In Uruguay the immigration is about two thousand a year.

Australasia.-As to Australasia and Polynesia the informationexcept for our own larger colonies-is meagre in the extreme, and the figures in this column clearly fall far short of the truth. The Australian colonies show an immigration of 394,000 in 1882 and 1883; but 263,000 also emigrated in those years, leaving a balance of only 131,000 immigrants, or 65,500 yearly.

Jews. This paper would belie its title if it ignored the race which of all others is pre-eminently not at home.' The growing reluctance of sectarian origin-to inquire into the religions, or the irreligions, of the people in England, France, and other countries, renders it impossible to complete statistics which the Jews themselves could not compile without an organisation which would provoke antagonism in many quarters. The following figures do not account for quite three millions of this teeming breed, and it will be seen that three countries-Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Roumania— contain the vast majority of the numbers here set down. Every

tenth individual in Vienna is now a Jew, and the Hebrews number 1 in every 22 in Austria, and 1 in 24 in Hungary:

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

There are now but 400 Jews in Spain. At the end of the fifteenth century, before the Inquisition, the expulsion, and the marranos, they numbered upwards of a million in Andalusia, Castile, Léon, and Murcia alone. The Jew in Samos must be a wandering one, and recalls the Turkish legend that an Israelite once went prospecting to Mitylene, but levanted again the next day when he saw the natives weighing the eggs they bought in the bâzâr.

A last brief paragraph for the Jâts or Rom, whom we know as Gipsies. Enumerations between 1878 and 1881 give 79,393 in Hungary, 37,393 in Bulgaria, 27,289 in Servia, 19,549 in Eastern Roumelia, and 200,000 in Roumania. This last number requires corroboration; but wherever the Jew goes the Romany goes :

In each land the sun does visit

He is gay whate'er betide;

To give space for wandering is it

That the world was made so wide?

JOHN O'NEILL.

« PreviousContinue »