v MIGRATION AND BUSINESS CYCLES 
The index for Italy conforms reasonably well to the above des- 
cribed general tendencies, with the exception that the decline in 
the seventies is interrupted by a sharp recovery in 1876, and the 
movement of the Italian index through the eighties and the early 
nineties conflicts in some years with the direction of movement of 
the indices for the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, 
and is on the whole more erratic. Whether these differences are 
chiefly due to significant peculiarities in the economic conditions 
of Italy or are merely the result of the less adequate basis for the 
Italian index, may be open to question. Since the late nineties, 
the index for Italy also conforms approximately to the movements 
which have been mentioned as common to the other three. 
The emphasis in the above paragraphs on similarities in the 
major swings of business conditions in the United States, Great 
Britain and Germany, should not be interpreted as implying that 
there are not many minor differences. To illustrate, in the eighties 
the low tide of activity is reached in the United States in 1885 but 
not until 1886 in Great Britain and Germany; in 1892 a rise is 
evidenced in the United States, while activity is declining in Ger- 
many and Great Britain; the decline of 1896 is peculiar to the 
United States; the reaction in 1901 is slighter in the United States 
than in the other two countries; in 1902, depression is deepening 
in Germany while a considerable improvement is shown in the 
United States; and in 1911, a mild depression is evidenced in the 
United States but not in Germany or Great Britain. More con- 
sideration will be given to these differences in subsequent paragraphs 
when making a comparison of economic conditions and emigration 
from each country separately considered. On the whole, however, 
the degree of similarity illustrated in Chart 40 indicates that in- 
asmuch as the major swings in immigration to the United States 
coincide with the major cycles in industrial conditions in the United 
States, as has been pointed out in previous chapters, it follows that 
the upward swings in the cycles of emigration to the United States, 
must, in general, occur in periods of relative prosperity in the 
European countries of emigration. It remains to test this tentative 
conclusion by closer examination of the fluctuations in migration 
from the several important countries. 
Selected Countries. 
In the preceding pages we have noted the outstanding differences 
in the flow of migration from various countries to the United States 
76