Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/683

 POPULATION AND WAGES 667

vacant spaces left by death be filled by aliens or natives ; and that voluntary checks, far from bettering the condition of the people, rather aggravate their misfortunes, by exposing them to the fierce competition of foreign labor. And the conclusion, of course, is that, unless those checks be universally adopted, their adoption in individual cases, and even in whole nations, will be of little or no avail.

Here again some of the necessary factors of the alleged phenomenon have been overlooked. Evidently the condition of the workman is not better in Italy than in France, nor in Germany than in the United States ; and not only it is not better nor equal, but it is by far inferior. This is already presumptive evidence that there must be some flaw in the argument. The source of error is not too recondite to detect. Migration is always directed from those places where labor is lowly remu- nerated toward those places where labor is highly or less lowly remunerated : the natives of a country will never emigrate to another country where wages are lower than in theirs, or as low as in theirs. And not only must there be some difference in the wages paid, but the difference must be sufficiently great to com- pensate the emigrant for abandoning his friends, very often his family, and leaving his native land to go among strangers that lead a life entirely different from his own, speak a different tongue, and look down upon him, sometimes with hatred, some- times with contempt, seldom with sympathy, and more seldom with love. Thus the very occurrence of immigration shows the superior condition of the country where it occurs ; and, although it no doubt diminishes the advantages of the prudential check, its effects neither are nor can be sufficient to make that check entirely nugatory. And this without mentioning the fact that, whatever his wages may be (they are never excessive^, the laborer, by a proper restriction of his multiplication, will secure for himself and his few children (if he has any) a more com- fortable and respectable living, and be able to give them a better education, by which they may not only remain at the level of their parents, but rise to higher stations ; while, at the same time, he will spare himself and those depending upon him the miseries