only a week's remove from starvation, is due to the lowering of the standard of capacity by the emigration of the more capable, is a very important question. The same consideration applies to Ireland in a far more acute form, as the emigration has been of much larger proportions. A large immigration into England has recently grown up. So far as this is of more energetic men, who see their way to win over our heads, they should be welcomed. The German who comes to England to establish factories and exploit the English market is at least a gain to the country, as it is far better he should do this in England rather than expend all that energy and management out of England. The trade and manufacture of England have been largely built up by immigrations of Flemings, Huguenots, Dutch, French, and now Germans, who have each contributed to our capacity for work. In commercial business the foreign influence is strong. In north-west London one-tenth of the private residents are of German origin. A movement is going on quite comparable to other great race movements of past history; but it only affects the upper classes, and not the hand-labourer. Beside this there is the large movement of the lowest and most depressed mass of European humanity, from the sink of poverty in Poland and Western Russia. It is essentially a bad stock, one of the lowest in Europe; and the large proportion of criminal cases arising among these immigrants shows how undesirable they are. To allow such a low type free settlement in England, after draining the capable Englishmen to the colonies, makes a serious danger of a national collapse under a sudden pressure of some new circumstances, which might arise by trade or warfare. Some other consequences which flow from recent changes will be dealt with in the fourth chapter in considering the effects of small causes.