B. Germany In the closing years of the nineteenth century Germany ceased to be a country of emigration, and became a country of immigration. This transformation is seen from the following table: TABLE 43. FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION OF GERMANY, net EMIGRATION AND NET IMMIGRATION (THOUSANDS).1 The increase of the foreign-born population of Germany during the years 1900-1907 averaged 79,000 annually. The annual increase of the foreign-born population of the United States in 1870-1880 averaged 107,000, and in 1890-1900, 109,000. It can be readily seen by comparison that immigration to Germany is growing to respectable proportions. Two thirds of the foreign-born male breadwinners are engaged in industrial pursuits. This fact alone would furnish a sufficient explanation of the decline of German immigration to the United States; when there is a call for large masses of immigrant labor, native wage-earners will find a good market at home.3 It is worthy of note, on the other hand, that Germany Die Statistik in Deutschland nach ihrem heutigen Stand, I Band (1911), Dr. Herrmann Losch, "Wanderungsstatistik," p. 485. Dr. Friedrich Zahn, "Deutschlands wirtschaftliche Entwickelung," Annalen des Deutschen Reichs, 1910, p. 405. 2 • Ibid. › See Appendix, Table XII. draws her immigrant supply from the same sources as the United States. During the twenty years from 1880 to 1900, three fourths of all immigrants to Germany came from Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy. Moreover, the Polish or Italian immigrant to the United States comes from a higher social layer than his countryman who goes to Germany, the cost of passage from any of these countries to Germany being purely nominal in comparison with the cost of a transatlantic trip. It is evident that the German wage-earner cannot avoid coming in contact with the immigrant from Southern and Eastern Europe by staying away from the United States. In addition to her permanent foreign-born population Germany has a large floating immigrant labor supply, the so-called "birds of passage," mostly Poles and other Slavs from Russia and Galicia. The latest official data relating to migration from Galicia to Germany place the total number at 26,283 for the year 1899. The movement has considerably grown since that time. Austrian statisticians variously estimate the number for the year 1905 at from 60,000 to 100,000. The migration of working men and women from Russian Poland to Germany for temporary employment has grown in the following proportion: TABLE 44 MIGRATION OF WORKERS FROM RUSSIAN POLAND TO GERMANY FOR TEMPORARY EMPLOYMENT, 1890-1904.3 • Münchener Volkswirtschaftliche Studien, J. von Trzcinski, "RussischPolnische und galizische Wanderarbeiter im Grossherzogtum Posen," p. 44. 3 Reports of the Warsaw Statistical Committee. Bulletin XXII., p. 2, About 95 per cent of the temporary immigrants from Russian Poland find employment as agricultural laborers.1 But the demand for them is the direct result of the movement of Polish peasants from the rural districts of Prussian Poland to the great industrial cities of Germany and particularly to the coal mining districts. In 1898 there were 57,000 foreign-speaking mine workers in Western Germany out of a total of 198,000, i. e., 28.7 per cent, nearly all of whom were Poles from Prussian Poland. According to the latest statistics for the Ruhr district, which produces one half of Germany's coal output, the number of Polish miners has grown to 100,000 out of a total of 350,000.3 Evidently, there must have been some other cause than reluctance to compete with Polish immigrants that has "operated to prevent the further coming" of German miners to the bituminous regions of Pennsylvania, since they have no alternative but to work with Polish immigrants on either side of the Atlantic. 4 The transformation of Germany from an emigrantfurnishing nation to a country of immigration is the direct result of her recent industrial expansion. Its extent can be gauged by the comparative growth of production of coal and pig iron in Germany and the two other leading industrial countries, the United States and Great Britain, as represented graphically in Diagrams XII5 and XIII. In coal mining Germany has, in recent years, outrun Great Warsaw, 1906. (In Russian.) General Analysis of the Statistics of 2 J. Karski, Die Polnischen Wanderarbeiter, "Die Neue Zeit," 1900 1901, pp. 722, 723. 3 V. Maisky: "The Tragedy of the German Coal Miners," (in Russian) Russkoye Bogatstvo, April, 1912, pp. 35, 47. 4 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 6, p. 427. 5 Based upon the Report of the United States Geological Survey, Production of Coal in 1909, p. 60. Figures are taken from The Mineral Industry, 1893, p. 351; 1896, p. 334; 1900, p. 395; 1910, p. 381. Production of pig iron in Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom, 1880-1910. 1910 5 12 11 10 14 13 18 17 16 15 Britain. The production of pig iron in Germany increased, within the past twenty years, much faster than in Great Britain; the German rate of growth was not far behind the American. Another index of German industrial progress is furnished by the development of her railway system and freight traffic since 1890. Comparative statistics for Germany and the United States are given in Table 45. TABLE 45. COMPARATIVE GROWTH OF RAILROAD MILEAGE AND FREIGHT TRAFFIC IN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES, 1890-1900.1 The full import of the preceding figures can only be realized if one bears in mind the much smaller area and the greater density of population of Germany, compared with the United States, both factors reducing the distance from mine to mill and from mill to market. The use of mechanical power in the industrial establishments of Germany more than doubled within the short space of twelve years, viz., from 3,400,000 in 1895 to 8,800,000 in 1907.2 'Computed from the following sources: Dr. Friedrich Zahn, "Deutschlands wirtschaftliche Entwickelung," Annalen des Deutschen Reichs, 1911, No. 3-4, p. 189; Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1910, P. 7I5. 2Zahn, loc. cit., p. 175. |