Regarded as a measure of the outflow of “surplus” population, even these figures are excessive in two ways. In the first place, they include considerable numbers of travellers and casual visitors who are not real emigrants. Secondly, to measure aright the net emigration, we must set against these figures the immigration figures. The net reduction of our population by emigration is thus reduced to an average, during the last five years, of 87,224 per annum.
Considering that the term “other places” includes the entire non-European world, outside Canada, Australasia, and South Africa, it is clear that the rest of our Empire absorbs at most a very few thousands, while the number of industrial settlers in our new tropical dominions must be a mere handful. A certain quantity of military and official employment is afforded by the new Imperialism to the influential upper classes, a few engineers, missionaries, prospectors, and overseers of trading and industrial undertakings get temporary posts, but as a contribution towards the general field of employment the new Imperialism is an utterly insignificant factor.
No substantial settlement of Britons is taking place upon any of the areas of the Empire acquired since 1870, excepting the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony, nor is it likely that any such settlement will take place. The tropical character of most lands acquired under the new Imperialism renders genuine colonisation impossible: there is no true British settlement in these places; a small number of men spend a short broken period in precarious occupations as traders, engineers, missionaries, overseers. The new Empire is even more barren for settlement than for profitable trade.
Part I, Chapter IV Top of the page