e attains manhood's
strength; he is as able to support a wife and family at twenty as he
will ever be; indeed he is more so, for while he is young his work is
more regular, and less liable to interruption by ill-health. The
reflection that an early marriage means the probability of a larger
family, and that a large family helps to keep wages low, cannot at
present be expected to make a deep impression upon the young unskilled
labourer. The value of restraint after marriage could probably be
inculcated with more effect, because it would appeal more intelligibly
to the immediate interest of the labourer. But it is to the growing
education and intelligence of women, rather than to that of men, that we
must look for a recognition of the importance of restraint on early
marriages and large families.

Sec. 3. The "Emigration" Remedy.--The most direct and obvious drainage
scheme is by emigration. If there are more workers than there is work
for them to do, why not remove those who are not wanted, and put them
where there is work to do? The thing sounds very simple, but the
simplicity is somewhat delusive. The old _laissez faire_ political
economist would ask, "Why, since labour is always moving towards the
place where it can be most profitably employed, is it necessary to do
anything but let it flow? Why should the State or philanthropic people
busy themselves about the matter? If labour is not wanted in one place,
and is wanted in another, it will and must leave the one place and go to
the other. If you assist the process by compulsion, or by any artificial
aid, you may be removing the wrong people, or you may be removing them
to the wrong place." Now the reply to the main _laissez faire_ position
is conclusive. Just as water, though always tending to find its own
level, does not actually find it when it is dammed up in some pool by
natural or artificial earthworks, so labour stored in the persons of
poor and ignorant men and women is not in fact free to seek the place of
most profitable employment. The highlands of labour are drained by this
natural flow; even the strain of competition in skilled hand-labour
finds sensible relief by the voluntary emigration of the more
adventurous artisans, but the poor low-skilled workers suffer here again
by reason of their poverty: no natural movement can relieve the plethora
of labour-power in low-class employments. The fluidity of low-skilled
labour seldom exceeds the power of moving fr