Remittance Man
April 26, 2009
Remittances are not a new phenomenon in the world, being a normal concomitant to migration which has ever been a part of human history. Several European countries, eg Spain, Italy and Ireland were heavily dependent on remittances received from their emigrants during the 19th and 20th centuries. In the case of Spain, remittances amounted to the 21% of all of its current account income in 1946.[citation needed] All of those countries created polices on remittances developed after significant research efforts in the field. For instance, Italy was the first country in the world to enact a law to protect remittances in 1901 while Spain was the first country to sign an international treaty (with Argentina in 1960) to lower the cost of the remittances received.
Remittance Man
In the 19th century, the English usage of the word usually referred to money sent from England – the opposite direction to today’s usual usage of the term. A remittance man was an exile living on money sent from home. Within Victorian British culture, this often meant the black sheep of an upper or middle class family who was sent away (from the UK to the Empire), and paid to stay away. These men were generally of dissolute or drunken character, and may have been sent overseas after one or more disgraces at home.
An example of this usage is in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book The Wrecker where the character Tommy Hadden is cast as the ‘remittance man’. In the book
“ Tom Hadden (known to the bulk of Sydney folk as Tommy) was heir to a considerable property, which a prophetic father had placed in the hands of rigorous trustees. The income supported Mr. Hadden in splendour for about three months out of twelve; the rest of the year he passed in retreat among the islands. ”
