Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/202

 1 86 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Italian population can overflow toward the north of Europe, in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, the overplus of southern Italians has only the North African coast and the Americas. To Africa, and especially Tripoli, where they have founded flourish- ing agricultural colonies, the Sicilians from the southern and eastern part of their island direct their steps, while to America, North and South, turn those who come from the territory south of Tuscany, to the extreme point of Calabria and the northern part of Sicily. In this portion of Italy clusters a closely packed population which presents an average density to the square kilo- meter sometimes superior to the average density of the whole of Italy (113). This mass of people, generally very prolific, has no industries, its only source of production being agriculture, which in these last decades has suffered severe crises, one more violent than the other, principally those which have affected the sale of wine and oranges.

Submerged in their prolification, impoverished by the decline of agriculture, and discouraged by the unjust distribution of taxes between the north and the south, to these people emigration offers the only relief, and they desert the land which produces in abund- ance the good things of the earth, for which there is little demand, and at first temporarily, but afterward permanently, abandon their native country to establish themselves in others where they find conditions sufficient for their maintenance.

The emigration from the southern provinces of Italy is destined to continue until the general conditions are changed, or until a diminution of the birth-rate establishes equilibrium between production and population. As neither of these solutions is probable before a period yet remote, emigration must necessarily remain a permanent feature for a long time to come, and, what is more important a point which the reader should note particu- larly it must assume more and more the character of definitive emigration to the countries where these people have found means to live and prosper. From this it will readily be seen that the cry of danger, which many Americans still repeat, is without founda- tion in fact. That the accusation, so readily made against the Italians, that they come here only for a time, and return to their