EMIGRATION TO AMERICA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 86, 10 April 1875, Page 4

EMIGRATION TO AMERICA.

(From the New York Herald, Jan. 12.) Ad official statement irom the Commissioners of Emigration for December gives us an idea of the falling off in emigration to ttje United States. During 1874 tho number of passengers, including citizens, who arrived in New York was 149,762. The citizens and natives did not amount to more than 1200, so that this figure may be said to represent the emigration during the year. In 1873 the number of emigrauts was 268,288, showing a decrease duriDg the pust year of 118,526. . We see no indication that this decrease will end, as the falling off increased from month to month, and was larger in December than in any month of the year. Thus, in last December, 3212 emigrants arrived, while in December, 1873, the number was 5239, showing a decrease in one month alone of 2027. In analysing the nationalities of the emigrants who came in the month of December, we find that from the German Fmpire there were 1567, and from Great Britain, including Ireland, 1629. This shows that the larger part of our emigrants come from Great Britain, although Germany continues to almost rival her in numbers. The two principal sources of supply, therefore, are Germauy and Great britain. France sends very few — not more than ten per ceut. of the Germans. From Sweden and Norway the emigration has almost ceaßed. Italy and Russia contribute a small number, but beyond Great Britain and Germany and the German States the arrivals from other foreign coun trieß may be put under the election head of "scattering." This does not represent the emigration to our Pacific coaat, almost exclusively of Chinese. But the fact that we have lost nearly 120,000 of our yearly supply of emigrants is a serious one. Now and then we have had spurts of "native American" passion, which proposed to make political war upon the foreigner. But the mature opinion of the country is ihiit our greatness and our growth depend upon the emigration from the great nations of Europe ? What are the causeß of this falling off ? We look for some in the severe police system of the German Empire, which throws every obstacle in the way of the expatriation of the subject. But the real causes can be found in our national policy, the depression of business, the disasters that have befallen the agricultural interests in the West, and the general fear of hard times and poverty. The failure of reconstruction in the South practically closes that vast and rich territory to the emigrants. The tendency of the Germans and the English and Irish is to come tj the United States. We have freedom, opportunity, liberal laws, and genial customs. Thero is scarcely a State in which a foreigner may not find some one to whom he con speak about his home. The arming of Europe for a new war, the anxiety and sufferings caused by the last wars, the feeling in the minds of all men that we are about to bave a conflict as gigantic as that which overthrew Napoleon, the in-

security which the mother feels about her son or her husband, who may be dragged during the night to follow the drum-beat that leads to the battle-field — -all these European commotions are so many advantages in favor of the United States. We have thrown them nway. We are throwing them away. We wantonly abuse this rich and apparently inexhaustible source of power. It is o question to interest our rulers at Washington and New York. There is no better opportunity for our statesmen than to restore this fertile and rapidly ebbing tide.