The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-13

the lnconvenient activity OF Fenians, ana TO |
avoid war for wars sake. They are also |
valuable to the United States in another way.
They are almost to man idealists and friends
of free thought. They resist the pressure OF
American sects, and they contend against the
weary mediocrity and intellectual poverty OF
republican societies. A population that Is
very steady and industrious and unambitious,
and which yet talks much nonsense, aud uses
bigger words and higher philosophical Ian
guage than it understands, which carries
sort of babyish poetry into family life, and
which, Philistine in its way of living, is by
no means Philistine in its conception of
the relative value of the different parts of hu-
man life, may be easily understood to contri-
butte something to American society that is
greatly needed. Germans are always ready
for education, for music, for art, for talk
about music and art, and, generally speaking,
for all that the natural heart of the unre-
claimed Englishman detests. The best part
| of Manchester society consists of the German
families settled there, and the Union is sort
of magnifed and glorifed Manchester. The
tyranny of religious cliques, again, is emil
nently distasteful to Germans while, unfortu-
nately it is only by constant efforts that it is
partially repressed in England. 1t might
easily grow rampant in the States, but the
Germans will do their best to prevent it, Per-
haps, for their own sake it might be wished
views of religion, but at any rate, whether
they are nominally Protestant or Catholic
| they all seem to set themselves most resolutely
| against every kind of religious interference.
| Thus in every way the Union gains by receiv-
ing them, and may congratulate itself that
they come in twice as great quantity as emi-
| grants from ano other nation. At any rate, if
they are not all that could be desired when
| they land they are capable of being assimi-
| latad inprovad IN q ramarlS abla dapraa
Lord Carnarvon, we believe, lately stated
| that it was the subdivision of the land that
drove Germans to emigrate. Whether this
cause operates largely, or whether it operates
at all, we have no means of knowing but
poverty, from one cause or other, is of course
the main reason why people emigrate from
| every country In Ireland the mass of the
emigrants have not been holders of the soil
at all, but laborers, and it is probable that
the same may to great extent be true of
Germany. But other causes have also helped
to swell the tide of emigration, of which fear
and hatred of the conscripton has been per-
haps the most active The emigrants have
longed to live in a country where their time
was not wasted, their business suspended,
and their homes invaded by the drill ser
geant. The United States have also afforded
refuge to thousands of Germans whose
political views were entirely opposed to
those of the Governments under which
they were born. 1t has lately been re-
marked by French writer that the history
of France has greatly differed from that
of England, owing to the fact that, England
being a coloniZing country, her violent re-
publicans have gone off and left England
comparatively conservative; while France,
not being colonizing country, has retained
her violent republicans continually in her
bosom. There can be little doubt that this
is true, and that the American colonies acted
| as a safety valve while the modern Constitu-
ton of England was in the process of forma-
ton, and thatif Frenchmen had been in the
habit of going abroad, there would not be
so many irreconcilables at Paris. Germany
has also, we may be sure, got rid of many
troubled and troublesome spirits in the same
way. Their yearnings for republicanism
have been gratifed at the safe distance of
three thousand miles, and their own country
has at least been the quieter for their alb
sence. An old society, that is at the same
time colonizing or emigrating society,
must be much more tranquil and more con-
tented society than one in which every one STAYS
where he was born Ireland, in point of de-
cency and good order, is not much to boast
of at present; but its state would have been
ten times as bad if all the Fenians had stayed
at home, and if the pressure of population on
subsistence had not been mitigated bya large
outgoing of emigrants. AS mere matter of
theory, we should have thought that Lord
Carnarvon, if right in his facts, was wrong
in his deductions, and that if the Germans
are driven to emigrate by subdivision,
} this may show not that subdivision is
always bad, but that the evils of subdivision
may be averted if the superabundant popula-
ton emigrates However this may be, the
tendency of emigration is to make the mother
country conservative, and Germany has natu-
rally felt the influence of this source of tran
quillity Emigration also tends to make Ger
J many conservative, in the sense that it in
duces the nation to seek force and con-
centration of its strength which will COM
mand universal respect. Germans are not at
all inclined to arrogate to themselves the
rights of pre-eminent citizenship which
: Lord Palmerston SO fervently be-
lieved belonged in the nature of
things to Englishmen; but they are quite
sensible of the enormous advantages which
dwellers in foreign lands derive from the fact
that the country of their birth is generally
respected and feared That there should be
such body as the North German Confedera-
ton to buy one of the Banda Islands is a re-
suit of Sadowa which must be precious to the
German patriot. But the fruits of Sadowa
can only be reaped if the dissolving forces
constantly at work in Germany are kept firmly
in check The primary effects of emigration
on a country like Germany are, therefore,
conservative because emigration enforces the
> wisdom and necessity of consolidating national
strength, as well as because it removes dis
: turbing and dangerous element of the popula-
ton, and lessons poverty and distress. But
: probably in time it may act the other way, as
it has acted in the case Of England. Emigra-
: tion in the seventeenth century made Eng
: land conservative in the eighteenth, and
Z z ~