Postwar WWI Emigration and the Burden of Usury

Postwar emigration to overseas countries is weighed down by a grave affliction: emigration usury. Only a small number of emigrants to the United States and Canada receive help from relatives abroad in the form of prepaids (ship tickets purchased in Canada or America) or money remittances to cover such tickets at home. The majority of emigrants to Canada and the United States, and nearly all emigrants to Argentina and Brazil, must purchase their own ship tickets with their own funds and also obtain a certain amount of cash required for entry into these countries as well as for travel expenses.

An individual emigrant to Canada needs on average 200 dollars, to the United States about 150 dollars, and to Brazil or Argentina around 120 dollars. Families emigrating to Canada require, in addition, after paying all travel costs, another 350–500 dollars as a down payment for the purchase of a farm.

Smallholders and poor emigrants, almost without exception, do not possess the cash required for the journey. They either borrow money, or sell, or mortgage their land and property. And since within the country it is not possible to borrow the necessary cash from banks or credit institutions, various types of moneylenders have taken advantage of this opportunity.

Emigration usury operates on a large scale in two forms:

• when lending money on bills or mortgages, moneylenders charge emigrants 3 to 8 dollars per hundred monthly, or 36 to 100 percent annually;
• when buying land, buildings, or equipment, moneylenders acquire the emigrant’s property for 50 percent of its value.

If we consider that at least 15,000 Ukrainian emigrants depart overseas annually at their own expense, emigration usurers profit 2 to 3 million dollars every year. This practice not only makes it impossible for many to emigrate but also ruins those who do manage to leave, together with their families, financially for a long period of time.

The struggle against this immoral and destructive emigration usury must be undertaken by the entire society. Police and judicial measures alone cannot suppress usury. It can only be ended by the creation of affordable credit for emigrants and for those who purchase property from emigrants.

The Society for the Protection of Ukrainian Emigrants in Lviv has taken the initiative in this regard. In July of this year, a delegation of the Society—Zayachkivsky, Dr. Hovykovych, Dr. Konstantynovych, and Ivashko—visited the Minister of Labor and Social Welfare. The Minister promised to consider the matter and responded favorably to the Society’s initiative, assuring his support.

In order to organize the establishment of a credit institution for emigrants, the Society for the Protection of Ukrainian Emigrants in Lviv has distributed a questionnaire on the possible forms of such a lending institution and the sources of its capital, both domestic and foreign. The Society has invited to participate:

1. all Ukrainian central banks and credit institutions;
2. all county branches and loan offices;
3. community cooperative societies and credit unions;
4. Ukrainian bankers and brokers in Canada and the United States;
5. emigrants in Canada and the United States who possess sufficient cash resources.

Based on the material thus collected, the Society intends, before the start of the new emigration season to Canada and America, to launch the creation of a new financial institution, or to reorganize an existing one (for example, the Land Mortgage Bank in Lviv).

The investment of capital into the enterprise of financing Ukrainian emigration—apart from fulfilling the ethical mission of combating emigration usury—will, with solid mortgage and bill guarantees, also represent a profitable and secure placement of funds.