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IV
SOME ADVANTAGES OF NATIONAL FEELING
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organisation has ever been able to make itself more than sectional. The claims of one body of workers are habitually opposed to the needs of others, so that they can only unite, now and again, on some very general ground, like the limitation of the hours of work. It may be added that there is a great and not unreasonable jealousy among the workmen of every country lest they should be swamped by the immigration of competitors. This feeling is likely to become stronger as times go on, as America and Australia fill up, and as it becomes increasingly clear that there is no great field for the employment of whites in the Tropical Zone. It may, indeed, be hoped by optimists that in the far future the comity of nations will be so far extended as to make it increasingly easy for individuals to change their country; but it can hardly be expected that the United States, to take the most important instance, will continue to find land and labour for several hundred thousand emigrants yearly. It is needless to say, however, that if population in England and Germany continues to increase at its present rate, an emigration of a million will mean no more thirty years hence than half a million meant thirty years ago. Practically, then, the Trades -Unions of the future are likely to become not more international in their character, but more exclusively national. Each will try to secure the best possible terms for itself in its own country; each will protect itself against competition from outside; and as a consequence the mass of men will have to abide in the land where they are born, and to make the best of it.

These considerations apply partly to the cosmopolitan theory. It will have to contend with the narrower feeling that is bound to prevail, when men no longer look upon the world as full of possible homes