INFLUENCE OF ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 209 
In those relatively infrequent periods when prosperity in the 
United States is coincident with depression in the country of emi- 
gration, the tendency for emigration to the United Statesito be 
high would presumably have the effect of ameliorating unemploy- 
ment in the home country. 
On the other hand, when, as frequently is the case, periods of 
prosperity or of depression are common to the United States and 
the leading countries of emigration, the effect is less fortunate. 
When prosperity is being experienced, emigration is relatively high; 
when depression reigns, it is relatively low. In earlier chapters we 
have seen that despite the sensitiveness of the flow of immigration 
to industrial conditions in the United States, the net effect of cyclical 
fluctuations in immigration is to aggravate, on the whole, the 
unemployment problem in the United States. It would appear that, 
in those periods when cyclical conditions in the two countries are 
similar, the effect on cyclical unemployment in the countries of 
emigration must be even less favorable than in the United States, 
for in such periods the emigrant tends to leave when industrial 
conditions are good and to remain at home when they are bad.