Immigration : $b A world movement and its American significanceFairchild, Henry Pratt
History
Immigration : $b A world movement and its American significance
Fairchild, Henry Pratt
Emigration and immigration; United States -- Emigration and immigration
Other differences which may be looked for between the two countries
concerned in an immigration movement are the following: the country of
destination is more democratic than the other, and its people enjoy
greater social and political equality; there is more of individual
freedom of conduct, and fewer traditional or legal restraints; military
burdens are lighter, and there is greater latitude for religious belief
and practice. On the other hand, life in the new country is likely to be
more arduous, industry more insistent, the demands for personal ability
more urgent. These features at once suggest those typical of the farm
colony, and in point of fact we find that practically all countries
which receive large streams of immigrants are developed farm colonies.
These are, at the present time, the United States, Canada, Argentina,
Australia, South Africa, and to a certain extent parts of Asiatic
Russia.
The requirements, then, for an immigration movement are the following:
two well-developed countries, one old and densely populated, the other
new and thinly settled, the two on friendly, or at least peaceable,
terms with each other. For immigration, even more than colonization, is
a phenomenon of peace. On the part of the people who are to take part in
the movement a high degree of civilization is demanded. They must be
trained to act on individual initiative, and must have sufficient
personal enterprise to undertake a weighty venture without an official
or state backing. They must have sufficient intelligence to know about
the objective point, and sufficient accumulated capital to enable them
to get there. There must be adequate, easy, and inexpensive means of
transportation between the two countries, in order to enable any large
number of people to make the journey. The immigrant is not in any sense
an adventurer or explorer. On the part of the nations concerned there
must be a willingness to allow individuals to come and go at their own
pleasure, without any extreme restrictions or regulations. There must be
nothing of the old idea of the feudal bond between the person and the
land.
From the above it appears that immigration must be distinctly a modern
movement. Scarcely one of the foregoing requirements—not to speak of the
conjunction of all of them—is more than three or four centuries old.
Consequently immigration, in the sense in which we have defined it, has
existed only for a comparatively short time, practically since the
Discoveries Period. Moreover, it seems likely to be a purely temporary
phenomenon. With the disappearance of the conditions which differentiate
the countries which are now receiving immigrants from the older European
countries, it seems probable that immigration will cease, for as far as
the human eye can see, there will be no new lands to be opened up for
the purpose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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