Pressures and Barriers in Future Migration

Abstract

IN A world nominally committed by the United Nations to a more nearly equal distribution of resources relative to population, one might expect numerous proposals for the migration of people to areas of greater opportunity. While it is doubtless true that population pressure is now discredited as a basis for demands for Lebensraum, colonies, or trade outlets, it is nevertheless recognized that inequalities in the distribution of resources and economic opportunity must be reduced if there is to be a lasting solution of the world's economic and political problems. To use the current phrase, it is generally realized that poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere. As yet, however, there are few serious proposals that the indicated redistribution be effected even in part through international migration. The Atlantic Charter, for example, in speaking of access to raw materials, was apparently directed more toward free trade than free migration. Consistent with this is the action of recent international conversations and agreements in proposing ways and means for promoting the international movement of capital, manufactures, and raw materials, but not the international movement of people. Even the International Labor Organization at its recent Philadelphia meeting gave only passing attention to the migration of labor, choosing to look in other directions for means to accomplish its economic and social objectives. OUTLOOK FOR MIGRATION