and the sharpness of competition will be immeasurably increased. The
possibility of rising in life will be reduced to a minimum; and there
will exist a class, as in the older civilizations of Europe, who live,
and expect to see their children live, in a subordinate or inferior
relation, without the prospect of anything better.

There may be under this new régime a number of occupations in which the
Negro, by contentedly accepting a subordinate position, may hold his
ground. Or the conditions of life may become so severe that a sharp
struggle for existence will leave in possession the race which shall
prove fittest to survive. To follow the train of thought would lead into
all the unsolved difficulties of the Negro Problem. But surely there
will be some among all the millions of the race who will become
dissatisfied with their life here. Some will aspire to higher things,
some will seek merely a field where their labor will meet an adequate
return; many will be moved by self-interest, a few by nobler motives. To
all these Liberia eagerly opens her arms. The pressure in America finds
an efficient safety-valve in the colonization of Africa.

With such additions to her strength, the resources of Liberia will be
brought out and developed. Communication with America will be made
easier and cheaper. The toiling masses left behind will have before them
the constant example of numbers of their race living in comfort and
increasing prosperity under their own government. Many will become eager
to secure the same advantages, and gradually a migration will begin that
will carry hundreds of thousands from the house of bondage to the
promised land.

It is absurd to declaim about "expatriation" and to declare such a
movement forced and unnatural. The whole course of history reveals men