And let not Europe, the white brood-land, the heart of the white world, think itself immune. In the last analysis, the self-same peril menaces it too. This has long been recognized by far-sighted men. For many years economists and sociologists have discussed the possibility of Asiatic immigration into Europe. Low as wages and living standards are in many European countries, they are yet far higher than in the congested East, while the rapid progress of social betterment throughout Europe must further widen the gap and make the white continent seem a more and more desirable haven for the swarming, black-haired bread-seekers of China, India, and Japan. Indeed, a few observers of modern conditions have come to the conclusion that this invasion of Europe by Asiatic labor is unescapable, and they have drawn the most pessimistic conclusions. For example, more than a decade ago an English writer asserted gloomily: "No level-headed thinker can imagine that it will always be possible to prevent the free migration of intelligent races, representing in the aggregate half the peoples of the world, should those peoples actively conceive that their welfare demands that they should seek employment in Europe. In these days of rapid transit, of aviation, such a measure of repression is impossible.... We shall not be destroyed, perhaps, by the sudden onrush of invaders, as Rome was overwhelmed by the northern hordes; we shall be gradually subdued and absorbed by the 'peaceful penetration' of more virile races."[183] Now, mark you! All that I have thus far written concerning colored immigration has been written without reference to the late war. In other words, the colored-migration peril would have been just as grave as I have described it even if the white world were still as strong as in the years before 1914. But the war has of course immensely aggravated an already critical situation. The war has shaken both the material and psychological bases of white resistance to colored infiltration, while it has correspondingly strengthened Asiatic hopes and hardened Asiatic determination to break down the barriers debarring colored men from white lands.