We have been accustomed to hear, during the last five years, that emigrants were returning from the United States in greater numbers than they sailed hence, owing to the "hard times." It was and is pretended, that the depression bore more severely on the other side of the Atlantic than on this. It is not my present purpose to consider that question. But at no time during this period did the departure from, approach the numbers of immigration to the United States. The proportion of departures to arrivals reached its highest point in 1877, when the figures stood as follows:-Arrivals, 142,000; departures, 72,000-about one-half.

The population of the American Colonies at the commencement of the War for Independence was about three millions. From the year 1819 until the end of 1879, upwards of five million people from the United Kingdom alone emigrated to the United States. They are your "kin beyond the sea," made keener perhaps, and more enterprising it may be, through altered conditions, and competition with the German, the Swede, and the Frenchman; but your kinsmen still, speaking your language, glorying in your history, and ready to welcome you to their ranks.

The years of commercial stagnation threw thousands out of employment in America. This fact deterred large numbers from emigrating. Europeans have recognised the fact that the United States has now entered upon a period of unexampled prosperity; and the tide of emigration has set in with a rush. Upwards of 450,000 emigrants reached New York during 1880, against 177,826 in 1879. There is room and a welcome for more.

CHAPTER II.

THE WAGES OF LABOR AND THE COST OF LIVING
IN EUROPE AND AMERICA.

It is perhaps very generally admitted that the wages of labor are higher in America than in Europe. But it is also claimed that the cost of living is greater, and that, therefore, the advantage to the emigrant who settles in the United States is but seeming, and not real. Arguments based upon this assumption are daily used at the clubs, hotels, and even upon the public platforms of this country. I I very much doubt if they can be heard in the homes of the poor. In support of the contention, it is asserted that kid gloves cost three dollars a pair on Broadway; that the charges for rooms are exorbitant at the first-class hotels of America, and that a bottle of vin ordinaire costs a dollar and a half in Chicago. All this is doubtless true, and goes to prove that the luxuries and not the necessaries of life are dearer in the United States than in Europe. Kid gloves, silks, and wines, are imported from France, Germany, and other countries, at great expense, and upon payment of heavy duty, consequently they are dear. But it is otherwise with articles exported from the United States to France, Germany, and elsewhere. When a country can export a given article, it clearly can

and must sell that article cheaper at home than at the remote market, since the duty and all the cost of transportation upon it are saved. The necessaries of life, such as beef, pork, lard, cheese, flour, fruit, cattle, sheep, and horses, are exported in thousands from the United States to Europe. It follows that these commodities can be purchased cheaper where they are produced than at the remote market. It seems superfluous to argue that flour made at Milwaukee can be bought cheaper there than at Manchester, or any other town in Europe; that cattle grazed in Texas can be purchased there cheaper than in London or Paris. The intending emigrant will see what are the goods exported from America, and to what extent that trade has increased within the last ten or eleven years, by the following table, prepared at the Bureau of Statistics, Washington.

Value of the exports of sundry articles during the fiscal year of 1879, as compared with the fiscal year 1868:

If quantities instead of values were given, the exports would show still greater increase than appears in the

preceding table; for prices have fallen greatly in every instance since 1868.

It is a self-evident proposition, that every article enumerated in the foregoing table of exports can be purchased cheaper in America than in the countries of Europe whither it was exported.

I now insert a table showing the relative cost of the necessaries of life in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, New York and Chicago. It was compiled from that valuable book, State of Labor in Europe, composed of reports from United States Consuls residing at the various towns of Europe, and submitted to Congress by the Hon. W. M. Evarts, Secretary of State, during the Administration of President Hayes, in a clear, able letter reviewing the entire question. The source of my information is stated, that the reader may see that it is thoroughly reliable.

COST AT RETAIL OF THE NECESSARIES OF LIFE IN THE COUNTRIES AND CITIES NAMED.

Prices are greatly reduced everywhere since the foregoing figures were procured: the relative values remain about the same. But it will be observed that the European consumer has to pay more by a hundred per cent., in many instances, for the necessaries of life, than the people of Chicago.

There is no country in Europe where the food supplies can be procured at anything approaching the low prices prevailing in the United States. I think the foregoing table abundantly proves this. But it is not pretended that the American lives cheaper than the European workman; on the contrary, he lives upon a more expensive-upon a different scale altogether. His position is apart from that of any other artisan in the world. He takes a widely different, a superior standing in the community-in social and political movements, in all the concerns of life-to that occupied by what are considered his fellows elsewhere. There is no idle class of "gentlemen" in America, and labor is respected there as it is nowhere else. "Who was his father?" is not the question. I affect no contempt for family tradition and a distinguished line of ancestors-I am only stating the facts. Abraham Lincoln was a rail-splitter in early life; and the very rails he split, and a thousand he did not split, helped to make him President of the United States. General Grant was once a tanner and leather dealer; and we wore leather aprons during the great presidential campaign which placed him at the head of affairs. "What has he done? "What does he know?" These are the questions which are put in the United States.

There is a sense of equality throughout the country, and more especially in the West. We all travel first-class, because we have no alternative: every man is on his good behavior, and he behaves well. I have seen "the master," Mr. give up his seat in a tram car to his own servant-beg your pardon, "hired girl"-in Milwaukee.