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v. social movements.
surplus uf population within the country itself, and. on the other, of a
disquieting rise in the flood of emigration in 1902 and 1903, the matter
was brought up several times in the Riksdag, with the result that the
1904 Riksdag made representations to the Government, urging that
investigations into the emigration question should be set on foot, chiefly with
the object of collecting statistics which should shed light on the
matter. After having taken the opinion of the proper departments, the
Government, in the beginning of 1907, entrusted the first actuary
of the Central Bureau of Statistics, Gustav Sundbärg, with the task of
conducting an exhaustive enquiry into emigration and its causes. In
the performance of this task, a large number of scientists and investigators
into social conditions rendered assistance; during the first few years,
Docent Nils Wohlin acted as secretary in connection with the work of
producing the report (published 1913).
The Investigation on Emigration. The roots of the emigration question
lie deep, penetrating into the economic life of the country, into social
conditions, and into certain psychological pecularities of the nation. It
is not a limited and isolated problem, but really a complexity of problems.
It is not unnatural, then, that the investigation of the question assumed
large and far-reaching proportions.
In the first place, the investigation kept in view that aspect of the question
which had to do with certain State measures for regulating, by means of
legislation and prescription, the course of emigration, the system of emigration agents,
emigrant traffic, and the like — the only systematic measures adopted in Sweden
during earlier times. In this connection, a review was made of the development
of emigration legislation and its position in the different countries of Europe,
and a report was drawn up of the legislation in force in Sweden for the control
of emigration and its application. To this was appended a special enquiry
touching Mormon propaganda. There are two sets of enquiries which have been very
important for the investigation of the emigration problem: the first comprises
enquiries among the emigrants themselves, conducted through the channel of special
agents on the Atlantic steamers, and enquiries among Swedish settlers in the
United States; the other comprises a series of valuable enquiries, undertaken by
specially qualified individuals, of the rural districts of some of the parts of the
Läns of Kalmar, Älvsborg, and Värmland that have suffered most severely
through emigration. Both these sets of enquiries aimed at affording a concrete
view of the emigration question, by giving the emigrants’ own views of the
matter and their reasons for emigrating, besides providing for direct observations as
to the economic and social conditions in certain typical districts affected by
emigration.
Enquiries in a certain degree resembling these investigations are those
comprehensive enquiries from local authorities and officials, such as the clergy,
agricultural societies, the local police, provincial medical officers, forest officials;
and of a similar nature, too, are a series of pronouncements on the question,
made at the request of those in charge of the investigation, by a number of
Swedish scientists. Finally, in this connection, mention ought to be made of a
particularly notable presentation of Emigration and the National Temperament.
The broad foundations of the work of the emigration investigation are laid by
the drawing up of comprehensive statistics, which, in the first place, present a
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