t is said that already there are
several small country towns in Southern Italy which have risen from
squalor to something of prosperity through the money and influence of
those who have come home. This temporary emigration is probably over
150,000 each year going abroad or to adjoining countries expecting to
return.

Besides this temporary emigration there is an equally large permanent
emigration. This is of two kinds, almost as entirely distinct from each
other as the emigration from two separate nations. The North Italian is
an educated, skilled artisan, coming from a manufacturing section and
largely from the cities. He is Teutonic in blood and appearance. The
South Italian is an illiterate peasant from the great landed estates,
with wages less than one-third his northern compatriot. He descends with
less mixture from the ancient inhabitants of Italy. Unhappily for us,
the North Italians do not come to the United States in considerable
numbers, but they betake themselves to Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil in
about the same numbers as the South Italians come to us. It is estimated
that in those three countries there are 3,000,000 Italians in a total
population of 23,000,000, and they are mainly derived from the north of
Italy. Surrounded by the unenterprising Spanish and Portuguese, they
have shown themselves to be the industrial leaders of the country. Some
of the chief buildings, banks, flour mills, textile mills, and a
majority of the wheat farms of Argentina belong to Italians. They are
one-third of the population of Buenos Ayres and own one-half of the
commercial capital of that city. They become lawyers, engineers, members
of parliament, and an Italian by descent has been president of the
Republic of Argentina, while other Italians have been ministers of war
and education.[48] While these North Italians, with their enterprise,
intelligence, and varied capacities, go to South America, we receive
the South Italians, who are nearly the most illiterate of all immigrants
at the present time, the most subservient to superiors, the lowest in
their standards of living, and at the same time the most industrious and
thrifty of all common laborers.

[Illustration: ALIENS AWAITING ADMISSION AT ELLIS ISLAND]

=Austria-Hungary.=--Next to that from Italy the immigration from the
Austro-Hungarian Empire in recent decades has reached the largest
dimensions. While Italy sent 273,000 people in 1906, Austria-Hungary
sent 265,