An Italian economic observer, report on agricultural labor and emigration, 1896:
'Every year, as autumn approaches in Lombardy and the Veneto, thousands of our agricultural laborers board the steamships at Genoa bound for Buenos Aires. They do not cross the Atlantic to settle or to flee political oppression, but rather to harvest the wheat of the Argentine pampas, where labor is scarce and wages are three to four times higher than in Italy. Once the Argentine harvest is gathered in March, these same workers return to Italy in time for the spring planting. The modern steamship has turned the ocean into a bridge, allowing the laborer to exploit the seasonal differences of two hemispheres.'
The migration pattern described in the passage was most directly a result of which of the following developments?
- AThe rural-to-urban displacement caused by the mechanization of textile production during the First Industrial Revolution.
- BThe expansion of state-sponsored indentured labor contracts to replace emancipated enslaved populations in Latin America.
- The combination of cheaper, faster maritime transport and the growing demand for seasonal wage labor in export-oriented economies.Cevap
- DThe establishment of direct European colonial administration to manage agricultural production in South America.