But, after all, ought we to take so tragic a view of the situation? We are coming to understand that the world to-day is not divided into so many water-tight compartments. The old idea of a country and a nation as an isolated entity, enjoying its own advantages and regarding other countries as rivals, whose gains were its loss, has gone by the board. The world has been wonderfully opened up in these later years. The seas are ploughed by countless ships, carrying from country to country the products of their agriculture and their manufacturing industries. Wealth is made all round by the mutual exchange of those products. If France prospers, or Germany, or Russia, England gains, for those countries have the more to spend on the things that England manufactures. Still more is this the case with the British dominions beyond the seas. South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are countries of our kinsmen. Blood is thicker than water. Those people look naturally to the home country as the country that offers them the most valuable market and as the country from which they shall obtain what they themselves desire to buy and use. Take Canada, for instance. Year by year it is increasing not only its selling but its buying power; it is becoming a most valuable customer to the homeland. Those who go out from us become our customers. The more they prosper the more they purchase from the Old Country. The farm labourer earning his 15_s._ a week goes to Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, or British Columbia and takes a pre-empted homestead of 160 acres. He has served, probably, a year or two on a farm, learning the methods, studying the situation, developing his manhood. If “the magic of property turns sand into gold,” what can it not do for 160 acres of fertile prairie? The labourer “breaks the prairie,” plants his corn, reaps his harvest, sends it to the elevator, fills his pocket with the price, and is so satisfied with himself that he wants to increase his holding. He does increase it. He spends money on stock, machinery, all the necessaries and some of the luxuries of life, and much of the money that he spends comes to the Old Country to stimulate our manufactures and our commerce. A young fellow who has left a Warwickshire or Berkshire or Leicestershire village returns to his village five years afterwards on a winter holiday after he has disposed of his crops. He spends his money freely. He is as independent as the biggest farmer in the district. The other young fellows of the village talk with him and hear his story. “Why don’t you fellows go out?” he says to them. “Why do you stop here? You will never be any better off here. Do as I did—go to Canada. There are farmers there almost fighting each other for every good man going out who can do anything on the land. You will find a job at once with good wages, and there is no reason why in four or five years you should not be doing as well as I am.” The village lads listen