Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Page 127

ECONOMIC ADAPTATION
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who like him have experience in emigration questions may make
better suggestions. They are welcome to do so. Perhaps the best
course would be to make preparations from more than one point
of view; but to wait until all are aware that something must be
done, would be to miss the opportunity.
An offer like that from Venezuela will hardly be repeated.
If we had then sent out the real pioneer material it might have
been of great advantage to our country in a few years by the
repercussions on Danish production that might have come from
a Danish colony in a future country such as Venezuela. These re-
marks are not intended as a criticism of those who have selected
the colonists. I consider it simply impossible at the outset to deter-
mine with certainty if a man or a woman is made of the true pio-
neer material. I could write a book, an interesting book full of ex-
amples drawn from real life, both of people who would seem
born pioneer colonists but who have nevertheless failed, and,
which is more curious, of people of entirely different types who
have got on well although one would naturally at the outset con-
sider them completely unsuited. This is one side of the difficult
problem of emigration. Another is this: should one, if it is possible,
prepare the emigration as carefully as it was intended in the
Venezuelan experiment, or should it be left to the individual
emigrant. Further: should one attempt colonisation by groups or
by individuals? On both these questions men of real experience
hold divergent views, and as regards the question of preparation
we are in a position to ascertain the extreme limits of these
opinions.
One extreme is represented by the Venezuela experiment,
where the preparations overseas were certainly such as to tempt
people from a country like ours, whose population from high
to low may well be described as spoilt. By this I mean that their
attitude is such that the attractions of the easier and more com-
fortable course outweigh the will to face hardships when life
requires it; an attitude which is aesthetic rather than realistic,
and which is not conscious of the fact that facilities and comfort
are obtained by external means which weaken will-power,
whereas will-power grows from within and is hardened by use.
The other extreme is represented by an experienced emigrant,
Oluf Johansen, who after a score of years of work and privation
in a tropical forest has become a wealthy man. He has published
two books on his life abroad which are extremely interesting and