year, all the child-bearing women who were over 20 when the movement began will have passed the age of 40 years, and there will be none to take their place; since, by the theory, all accessions to their class were removed as fast as they reached 20. The only accessions to the active maternal element of the colored population then, after the 21st year of the movement, would be the children of women who were over 20 when the movement began, and these children would be removed in turn in another period of 20 years; and in steadily diminishing numbers each year. The children of women over 40 need not be taken into account.

But we need not follow this line of suggestion farther. It has led us apparently to one safe and satisfactory conclusion-that the annual emigration of only 12,500 child-bearing colored women will remove the maternal element of the colored population within fifty years,—and we may now consider how the knowledge thus acquired can be applied in practice.

It would not be practicable to induce the emigration of all child-bearing women of any particular age, for forty years or in any one year. We must dismiss the idea of holding to the one-age limit. This will not materially affect the foregoing calculations, however, as is made manifest when we reflect that the emigration of 12,500 women of the maternal class, between the ages of twenty and thirty, for twenty years, would, in any event, lessen

by 250,000 the number who would attain the age of forty years in this country, and would remove that number as surely as though they had all been removed upon entering the age of twenty years. The effect upon the movement, after the twentyfirst year, would be somewhat modified, of course, but the final complete result would seem to be postponed about ten years only at the most. It ought not to be difficult to induce the annual emigration of 12,500 women of the ten ages between twenty and thirty, and we may probably accept that feature of the scheme as practicable. The number of emigrants remaining the same, any further extension of the limits in respect of age would result, of course, in extending by so much, or more, the time required for the accomplishment of the ultimate purpose. For every reason it would be well to keep these limits as restricted as practicable, and the reasons for keeping the maximum age at or even below thirty are too manifest to require to be stated. One such reason however should be mentioned.

The fundamental idea of the scheme here proposed is the emigration of actual child-bearing women. This means, of course, married women who have become mothers already. It would be desirable then to effect their removal as soon as possible after they enter the maternal class, rather than to postpone it until they should be cumbered with a number of young children who would greatly multiply the difficulties, expenses and

risks of their emigrant parents, if they did not deter many families from emigrating at all.

The scheme necessarily includes also, it is seen, the emigration of the husbands of the women under consideration. These will double the number of emigrants at once, and it is therefore the more necessary to restrict the number of persons to be removed, both for their own sake, and for the sake of the economy thus insured. It is plain that the emigrant parents should, for every reason, be induced to go as soon as practicable after they become parents.

Another matter requires to be mentioned before leaving this part of the subject. The number of adult persons proposed to be removed annually has been increased, at one bound, from 12,500 to 25,000. This number, according to the calculations based upon the Tenth Census, should be sufficient to solve the negro problem, finally, in fifty years. We cannot rest on these figures, however. If the scheme should be adopted and appointed to go into effect with the opening of the year 1890, for instance, the colored population in the United States will have increased, at the normal rate, by twenty-five per cent. The 25,000 must be increased in that proportion. Allowance should also be made for possible errors in the estimates presented, and such allowance must be made on the safe side. Provision also would have to be made for the emi

grant children. It is apparently necessary to

base our calculations as to the number of emi

grants whose removal annually must be provided for in 1890, and for twenty years thereafter, upon a total represented by 50,000 adult persons.* The number may be less if we begin the work of removal in 1890. It cannot well be more in that year; but it may be accepted as a certainty that it will never be so small in any subsequent census year. Whatever the proportions of the task may be now, they will be more than doubled in the next forty years. Our children and the children of this peculiar people, who shall grow up together in the interval, will have ample reason, it is feared, to curse our procrastination and sel fish folly, if we hand the inevitable and magnified undertaking down to them, as it has been handed down to us.

The number of the colored population in the United States in 1790 was 700,000. In 1860 it was 4,000,000. In 1890 it will be over 7,000,000. These figures present argument enough for im mediate action, on some scale. If 50,000 emigrants annually will not meet the requirements of our task, we should not longer delay going to work. If that estimate is excessive, so much the better. It can be easily reduced if necessary. In the meanwhile we may use it as the basis of further estimates which will give us an approximate and safe idea, at least, of what is before us.

* This number will not appear to be excessive when it is remembered that from 30,000 to 60,000 negroes were taken yearly from Africa to Cuba by vessels from the single port of New York, as late as 1855-60.-Vice-President Wilson: "Rise and Fall of the Slave Trade in America," Vol. 2., p. 618.

X.

RECKONINGs of Cost.

The next branch of the subject to be considered is the cost, to the people of the United States, of carrying into effect the proposed movement upon the basis here suggested, in the absence of any other. This cost would comprise :

1. The actual expenditure required for the transportation of the emigrants from their homes to their destination.

2. The expenditure required for their maintenance for a fixed period after colonization.

3. To these items should be added the probable cost of the support, in some degree of comfort, at least, of the aged or decrepit relatives of some of the emigrants who are dependent on them, and who must be either sent away with them or provided for in their absence.

What is the average cost of the transportation of immigrants from their former homes to their new homes in this country is not known to the writer. If we say $50 a head, which is a liberal estimate, and confine the calculation to the arri vals during the last seven years (1880-87) the average cost per annum for the transportation of these 4,500,000 was about $32,000,000. At which