It is because this movement is so essentially a workingman's movement that I am confident of its ultimate success. Let us look the situation in the face. The balance of power has passed into the hands of the wage-earning classes--three-fourths of the electorate are wage-earners; I use the word in its widest sense. Therefore, it follows as a matter of course, that just as the land-owning classes when they had the power made laws in their interests; and the trading-classes when they had the power passed laws for their interests; so the working, wage-earning classes of this country, now that they have the power, will use it to protect and advance their interests likewise. And what can touch their interests more nearly than this unrestricted immigration of destitute foreign labour? "The flowing tide is with us." Whatever may be the immediate interests of the hour, labour questions constitute the politics of the future. There are signs all round the world that social problems and labour questions are gradually taking the place of older issues over which men have contended. There is no likelihood now of a war about creeds, no dynastic contest is now on the cards; the rivalries of nations and of races are not as potent as they were; but the lot of the "dim millions," the labouring-classes, who were ignored by all the warriors and statesmen of the past, is now forcing its way to the front. The contest which is gathering will not be around "exhausted factories and obsolete policies," as Mr. Disraeli said in 1852, but living problems, coming home to the hearts and to the firesides of all labouring men. Labour legislation is the legislation of the future; and it needs no prophetic eye to foresee that one of the leading measures in the labour programme of the future will be to protect the English working-men against this perpetual pouring in of destitute foreigners. Hitherto in only one constituency, Lewisham, has this question found a prominent place in an electioneering programme. We all know the result of that election. As it was at Lewisham, so will it be before long in every urban constituency throughout England. "Why," the working-classes are asking, "should we be robbed of our birthright by the refuse population of other countries?" Why, indeed! People are beginning to see that a great and crying evil flourishes in our midst; and when that fact has been thoroughly digested, means will soon be found to remedy it. CHAPTER VI. WOMAN'S BITTER CRY.