The relatively tardy response of migration to the employment decline in 1920 and 1921, as shown in Charts 24 and 25, may be in part due to the desire of prospective immigrants to enter before the threatened restriction became effective.

CHART 25

CHANGES IN THE NUMBER EMPLOYED IN SELECTED INDUSTRIES COMPARED WITH ALIEN MALE ARRIVALS LESS DEPARTURES: DEPRESSION OF 1921.

Fig. A: During Stated Quarter.

Fig. B: Cumulatively from October 1, 1920.

Numerical data in Table 32.

Comparative Volume.

In most of the eight quarters under consideration the volume of alien male net migration is relatively small in comparison to the concurrent change in employment. On the average, the quarterly change in employment is ten times as great as the corresponding net alien male migration.

Similarly, if we take the high quarter in 1920, that is, the third quarter, as our starting point, and compare the total net immigration of alien males after that quarter with the total change in the number employed, (Fig. B of Chart 25) we find that by the first

quarter of 1922 there had been a decrease of about 3,300,000 in the number employed in mining, construction, and manufacturing, accompanied by a total net immigration after the third quarter of 1920 of 158,000.

Clearly, in the depression of 1921 the available evidence indicates that migration was a factor aggravating unemployment to some extent but was not sufficiently large in volume to be considered a major cause of unemployment.

TABLE 32.-NET MALE MIGRATION AND CHANGES IN THE VOLUME OF EMPLOYMENT IN SELECTED INDUSTRIES IN THE DEPRESSION OF

Computed from Table 24.

bBased on estimates of the total number of employees on the payrolls of all establishments in the extraction of minerals, construction, and factory industries, published in Employment Hours and Earnings in Prosperity and Depression, Vol. 5 of the publications of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

Immigration from Canada.

The post-war movement of immigration from Canada is of special interest because the 1921 quota law did not apply to natives of Canada or to persons born in other countries who had resided. there for five years, and also because the volume of immigration from that country, as shown by the official statistics of the United States Bureau of Immigration, reached such dimensions in this period that it aroused considerable discussion in the Canadian press.

Leaving out of consideration citizens and nonimmigrants and including only the "immigrant alien" group, the immigration in calendar years from Canada and Newfoundland to the United States is recorded as follows:

When adjusted for typical seasonal variation, the curve of immigration from Canada (Chart 26) exhibits a substantial decline during the greater part of 1921; in fact, through most of 1920 a

CHART 26

CYCLES IN IMMIGRATION FROM CANADA AND IN EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS: 1919-1923.

slight tendency to decline is evidenced in immigration from Canada, though the general movement of immigration from all countries is still on the upgrade (See Chart 24), suggesting that the decline in

At other points in our discussion of these data, we have used the term "Canada" as inclusive of all British North America.

industrial activity in the United States affected immigration from Canada more quickly than from Europe.

In Chart 26, the fluctuations of immigration into the United

TABLE 34.-EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS IN CANADA AND IMMIGRATION THEREFROM TO THE UNITED STATES: 1919-1923

Deviations from monthly average, 1919-1923, corrected for seasonal variations, and expressed in multiples of their standard deviations.

"Computed from monthly statistics prepared by the U. S. Bureau of Immigration and published in the Monthly Labor Review.

bObtained by reversing the signs of an index of unemployment, computed from percentages of unemployment in trade unions, published in the Canada Year Book for 1921, 1922, and 1923, and the Canada Labor Gazette for February and November, 1924.

States from Canada, adjusted to eliminate the influence of typical seasonal variation, are compared with employment conditions in the United States and Canada, respectively. Employment conditions in Canada are represented by the percentage of unemployment among trade union members (with the signs reversed so that severe unemployment is represented by a depression in the curve and vice versa). Employment in the United States is represented by the "labor market" index previously described.

The major depression of 1921 and the lesser decline in 1923 are common to employment in both countries. Both are above average in 1919 and the first half of 1920, begin to decline in 1920 to a low point in 1921, with a recovery beginning in 1921 and continuing through 1922 and part of 1923, followed by a moderate decline. In 1920, the downturn in employment came about three months later in Canada than it did in the United States.

To summarize, in the years from 1919 to 1922, inclusive, immigration from Canada tended to be greatest when employment was good in both countries and to be low when employment was at a minimum. For Canada in these years, it would appear that it is good prospects in the country receiving the immigration, rather than distress in the home country of the prospective immigrant, which cause cyclical fluctuations in immigration. However, the upward movement of Canadian immigration in 1923 is not consistent with this principle, inasmuch as employment in the United States evidences a cyclical decline subsequent to April of that year. In Chapter VIII, we return to this problem of the relative influence of conditions in the country of immigration and the country of emigration.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Fluctuations in migration in the war and post-war periods are dominated by non-economic influences to a much larger extent than in the pre-war period. Nevertheless when the effect of the economic factors has been as far as possible isolated, we find in the post-war period much the same relation between employment and migration as in the pre-war years. An increase in employment is reflected, somewhat later, in an increase in immigration and a decrease in emigration.