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emigration.
665
gave an impetus to the efforts directed to combat and mitigate the effects of
unemployment, an impetus so powerful that positive and lasting results may at
length be looked for in this department of social politics, which in Sweden has
received too scanty attention. Indeed certain positive results have been already
attained: such are, for instance, the gratifyingly rapid development of the public
labour exchange system in Sweden during recent years, and the increasing
interest taken by trade unions in the establishment of funds for their
unemployed members. The State authorities have also begun to address
themselves in earnest to the vexed problem of unemployment insurance. This
question has latterly been ventilated on more than one occasion in the Riksdag,
and it has now come up before the Civildepartementet (Home Office) for
investigation. The Riksdag is also instituting an enquiry to ascertain to what
extent all public works might be so adapted to fluctuating labour conditions,
that the greatest possible facilities for obtaining work might be reserved for
seasons of depression.
There are thus well-founded grounds for the hope that the Swedish politic
will now stand better equipped to encounter the harassing effects of periods
of depression, which the Swedish labour market has had all the more difficulty
in coping with, as it has already been thrown out of balance by the inordinate
amount of unemployment periodically recurring every winter.
Emigration.
An account has already been given, in connection with the article
on the statistics of population (p. I, 141), of the extent of
Swedish emigration; in the first place, the contributory causes were
touched upon, and secondly, the main historical features of the movement
were reviewed. A few general figures at once afford an indication of
the dimensions of the emigration movement and its problems. Through
emigration Sweden has lost more than a million inhabitants, or nearly
one-fifth of its present population. Further, statistics show that Sweden is
burdened with an abnormal proportion of old people and children of
school age, but suffers from a shortage of men and women in the best
years of life, as far as working-power and procreation are concerned.
Thus, in 1910, the population of the country showed an excess above
the normal of no less than 155 000 old people (above 65), while at the
same time there was a deficit of more than 120 000 among people between
the ages of 20—50, the perio-d of life when the working powers are at
their highest. The chief cause of this was emigration, which carries away
the young and vigorous, and leaves behind the old, to be cared for by the
Poor Law authorities, and the young children still at school.
It was not until the present century that measures which could really
be said to be the outcome of a systematic policy for dealing with
emigration were initiated, in spite of the periods of rapid emigration that
occurred during the decades 1860—1890. As a result, on the one hand,
of the great advance in Swedish industries, commencing with the
beginning of the nineties, which provided possibilities for the support of the
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