I

Gentlemen, emigration is a law of nature. The physical and the human world depend on this mysterious force, which stirs and mixes the elements of life without destroying them, which carries living organisms born in one place and scatters them throughout space, transforming and bringing them to perfection, thus renewing the miracle of creation at every moment. Seeds migrate on the wings of the wind; plants migrate on the waves of seas and rivers from continent to continent; birds and other animals move from place to place. But even more do human beings migrate, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone, and, in so doing, are always the free instruments of Divine Providence, which presides over human destiny and leads all people, even through great calamities, to their final goal: the perfection of man on earth and the glory of God in heaven.

This is what Divine Revelation is telling us; this is what history and modern science are teaching us. It is only from this threefold source of truth that we can derive the laws that govern the phenomenon of emigration and that we can set down the wise and practical guidelines that are to regulate this phenomenon in all its rich variety of forms.

Revelation, history, and modern science are telling us that emigration is a natural and inalienable right, that it is a social safety valve, balancing a country’s wealth and productive labor, that it is a source of prosperity for those who leave and for those who stay behind, since it relieves the land of surplus population and raises the value of the remaining manpower. In a word, emigration may be good or bad for a person or for a nation depending on the way and the conditions in which it happens,

but emigration is almost always a human value because it opens up new avenues for trade, helps the spread of scientific and industrial information, builds civilizations and brings them to perfection, broadens the concept of country beyond the political boundaries, making the whole world man’s motherland.

Emigration of civilized people can be internal, political, or agricultural-commercial, that is, by way of infiltration.

By internal migration I do not mean that ebb and flow of people who move about periodically for different social or personal reasons within a given area. I mean a true colonization, within the national boundaries, of uncultivated land that may be abundant in one area and scarce in another.

Everybody knows what political emigration and colonization means and how they came about. Its purpose is to give one’s country a larger territory, either by extending its borders or by occupying distant lands, where emigrants can live in the shadow of their national flag, under the shield of national laws and where religion, language, traditions, customs – in a word, all the things that make up the religious, social and national identity of a people – will keep alive, even in that country’s most distant descendants, the memory and love for the land of their fathers.

Political colonies were the Romans’ most powerful means of conquest and expansion, and we might do well to follow the migration policies of the Romans.

Agricultural-commercial colonies or those that come about by way of infiltration are those that aim at establishing in foreign countries groups of people of a given nationality who would engage in commerce, industry and agriculture and would live among a foreign population without losing their own natural character. This was the method of emigration and colonization preferred by our glorious maritime republics.

How is Italy nowadays carrying out this important function of her social and economic life? Or better, which of the above kinds of migration could Italy adopt?

To many people, internal migration seems the ideal method of migration; it is very useful and, for all of us, very easy to carry out. These people cannot understand why our Government has not yet decided to adopt this system, which would make us rich and powerful: it would multiply our population and give workers their daily bread in abundance.

This is how those who espouse internal migration reason: That Italy could accommodate a larger population is obvious. One has only to consider

the relative density of its population, which goes from 165 per square kilometer in the Liguria, to 152 in Lombardy, and little by little dwindles down to 92 in Tuscany, 77 in Apulia and Abruzzo, 60 in Umbria, 51 in Basilicata, 28 in the very fertile and admittedly already populated Sardinia. One has only to make a quick run across the Italian landscape and take notice of the steep rocky slopes in Valtellina and Liguria, the hills in Piedmont and Tuscany, the Po Valley, all transformed into gardens, the marshlands of the Roman countryside and the fertile plains of the Southern Provinces and Sardinia that lie uncultivated or have reverted to being pestiferous areas.

We must put to good use this floating poverty of our nation; we must use to our own benefit this manpower always sought after but not always appreciated, which, like a veritable stream of human beings, spreads throughout the world and is very much like the waters of a river without banks, waters that get lost along the sandy river beds and amidst the distant thistles rather than irrigating the surrounding soil.

Colonize the interior, if you will; free vast expanses of our national territory from malaria, if you will; make our agriculture more intensive and hence more rewarding, if you will. Whatever is done to this end is very good, but we must not deceive ourselves. Let us colonize as much as possible, but, to avoid disillusionment, we must convince ourselves that internal colonization will not be as easy as it seems and that it will not be able to keep up with the fast pace at which our population is increasing.

In fact, the average population density in Italy is 107 inhabitants per square kilometer, whereas in Germany it is 97, in Austria 80, and in France 72.

Besides, I think that those who believe there are millions of hectares of uncultivated land in Italy are mistaken. Italy has an area of 28.5 million hectares, 20 million of them already cultivated. Of the remaining 8.5 million, 4.5 million (I am rounding out the figures) are taken up by roads, lakes, rivers, dry lands or barren high mountain peaks. The other 4 million hectares are more or less used for pasture, of which, according to the General Agriculture Administration, one million hectares could be profitably cultivated. Now then, leaving aside the difficulties of such a program and the large capital needed for expropriation and development, leaving aside the inadequacies of the land registers in many Provinces, especially in Sardinia – which makes the allotment of lands difficult, if not impossible – the amount of land that could be profitably cultivated is rather small and does not at all meet the needs of our population.

But even granted the best scenario, granted the best possible land reclamation and ensuing settlement of the land, granted also an improvement in agricultural methods in the sense of more intensive farming, together with a booming industrial production, such as to give to all of Italy the population density of Lombardy (i.e. to bring to 50 million the population of Italy), we would still be far from finding room for the increasing number of people, who, in a century, will number 100 million, based on the average annual increase of the past 20 years.

So, in the next century, conservatively, about 50 million Italians will have to find a place outside of Italy!

Gentlemen, political colonies are another way by which modern countries fulfill their migratory functions, a method that perhaps takes in the largest number of interests and most awakens national pride. The great activity and jealous attention with which, in our day, the various countries are defending their ancient colonial possessions and acquiring new ones, are the most eloquent proof of my statement. Unfortunately, the hopes of our country for a large political colonization were dashed and put off until who knows when by our recent disasters in Africa, the mere thought of which saddens every Italian heart.

This data and these observations should convince us that Italy, at least for the time being, is left with only the third form of emigration, namely that of pouring out its surplus population in the midst of other peoples and in lands belonging to others. Though this form is more modest than the other two, it satisfies Italy’s immediate needs. Hence, our present emigration process, as it is going on among us, meets the political, territorial and economic needs of our country and does not exceed its reproductive capacity. As such it has the character of a permanent phenomenon and is a source of personal and social prosperity.

But what are the guarantees the law accords to this type of emigration? How is the State fulfilling its duty of moral and material support for the emigrant? How are we, the leaders, fulfilling this duty?