Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Blaðsíða 35

FINNISH EMIGRATION
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though interrupted by periods of depression, and first affected
Finnish workers in the mines of Northern Sweden, whence ex-
perienced miners were enlisted for the copper workings in Michi-
gan, then those in Finland’s farthest North, and soon after those
in Ostro-Bothnia.
The demand had made itself felt for some time in Norway,
Denmark, and Sweden, and via the latter country it now also
began to affect the Áland Islands and the West Coast of Fin-
land, especially the provinces of Turku-Pori (Ábo-Björneborg)
and Vaasa (Vasa). The result was another period of emigration
from these districts, and even from Central and Eastern Finland.
This outflow of emigrants was largely conditioned by labour
conditions in America, decreasing during periods of depression
and increasing in times of prosperity.
Another cause which increased the flow of emigration was
the Russification policy started about the turn of the i9th and
2oth centuries by Russia, which threatened to destroy the basis of
our national political life and expressly aimed at drafting our
young men into the Russian army.
Previous to the first World War the flow of Finnish emigra-
tion was increased by general political and economic conditions.
During that war it was at a standstill, and since then the restric-
tions enforced by the United States and Canada have greatly
reduced it.
On the other hand, when the Russian oppression of Finland
lessened after the General Strike of 1905, the number of return-
ing emigrants increased. Other notable causes of their return
were: the improvement of social and economic conditions owing
to the fact that Finland had become independent, the improve-
ment of labour conditions, the stabilising of the floating country-
side population by grants of land, and the new independence of
the peasants (crofters). These factors, of course, also removed
the principal causes of the emigration movement.
The great emigration here described in general terms can be
illustrated by statistics. Between 1864 and 1873 — the next de-
pression — the number of Finns who went to America and
Canada from the mines of Northern Sweden, the farthest North
of Finland, and Ostro-Bothnia is estimated at considerably over
10,000. When the next depression came in 1893 the number of
Finns in America was estimated at x 00.000.
In 1902 the intensified policy of Russification so increased