EMIGRATION. The unsatisfactory condition of public affairs is responsible for the enounous tide of emigration. More than 2.000,000 Italian emigrants are living in foreign countries, and their number increases from year to year by hundreds of thousands. The growth of emigra tion in the last quarter of the nineteenth century was as follows: 1876 108,771 1880 119,901 1885. .. 157,193 1891. ... 293,631 1896 .. 307,482 1898 283,715 • 1900. ... 352,782 It will be seen that the emigration increased more than threefold in the period indicated. As the conditions responsible for this exodus from the country do not seem to improve much, there are no reasons to expect any decline of emigra tion in the near future. The region contributing most to the emigration is the less productive and more poorly developed southern portion of the Peninsula from Naples southward, and the emi grants are chiefly peasants or representatives of (Aber lower classes. The Province of Genoa con
tributes more than any other province in the North to the stream of emigration. The country most vitally interested in this question is the United States. As late as 1888 less than 12 per cent. of all the Italian emigrants went to the United States, while more than 33 per cent. went to Brazil, and about 23 per cent. to Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay. In 1900 the proportion was reversed, the number of immigrants to the United States. Brazil. and Argentina being 136, 000. 11,500, and 72,000, or 38.5, 3.3. and 20.4 per cent., respectively. About one-half go to European countries, especially France, Switzer land, Austria. and Germany. The majority of these ultimately return home, and the remainder finally embark for America.