EMIGRATION

(Lat.) Migration is the movement of an individual or a number of people from one place of residence to another; emigration, their abandonment of their former home; immigration (a word of modern coinage), their settlement in their new one. Emigration is, in modern times, chiefly regarded in the light of a mode of relieving a country or district labouring under exce of population. The prejudices which formerly existed against it, on account of the lo of inhabitants thus sustained by a country, have long been removed, both by severe nece ity, and by the progre of economical knowledge. The power of reproduction in the human race is so great, that the vacuum occasioned by any practicable amount of emigration is speedily filled. It was long ago observed that those provinces m Spain from which the most constant emigration to America was going on (Biscay, Asturias, .) were among the best peopled. The subject of emigration, considered in an economical light, has been amply discu ed by Sir W.Horton (1825, .),by Col. Torrcns, and by Mr. G. Wake field {on Colonixation, 1830, in which there are some curious calculations as to the effect produced on the movement of population by the emigration of a comparatively small number of marriageable persons: England and America, 1837). Emigration from our islands has for two centuries been chiefly directed to North America; of late years, the Cape of Good Hope and Australia have begun to absorb a small portion of our surplus population. In 1831, a government commi ion on emigration was formed, with a view to the regulation of the practice; by which officers were appointed both at home and in the North American colonies to watch over the interests of emigrants and furnish I 394 I EMPHYTEUSIS. them with nece ary information. With reference to Australia, they established, for the first time, the useful prniciple of disposing of the public lands by sale, in order to form a fund for emigration. The following table showing the number of emigrants who have left the United Kingdom from 1825 to 1837 inclusive, is taken from the Journal of the London Statistical Society, i, 169 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 14,891 20,900 28,003 26,092 31,198 1831 1832 1833 1834 - 56,907 - 83,160 103,140 62,527 76,222 I In all 1835 - 44,478 18.36 - 75,417 1837 - 72,034 694,969 Of these there went, in 1837, 29,884 to the North American colonies. 36,770 to the United States. 326 to the Cape of Good Hope. 5,054 to the Australian colonies. The number in the same year from England was 40,502 Scotland - 4J79 The control of this important department is now (1841) transferred to three otficers, entitled Commi ioners of Colomal Lands and Emigration. [s. 407]