ABSTRACT
The position of the labouring population has been most powerfully affected by emigration. Many of the circumstances are perhaps somewhat uncertain in their operation. When Malthus published his celebrated Essay on population, the great social and economic problem which required solution, was the relief of an over-stocked labour market. The truth of the law was receiving a sad and practical illustration that as population increases food becomes more expensive, unless a greater demand for agricultural produce is met by augmented importations, or by the introduction of agricultural improvements. Unskilled workmen, such as agricultural labourers, are those who obtain the greatest benefit from emigration. In the first place, these are the labourers who in our own country are the worst paid, and these labourers moreover supply that kind of labour which is most required in young countries.
