Chapter XV. The Wealth of the Inhabitatns of Different Territories

CHAPTER XV THE WEALTH OF THE INHABITANTS OF DIFFERENT TERRITORIES § I. The Conception of a Nation and its Wealth. WHEN serious discussions about the wealth of such entities as H England," H France," H Holland," and II Spain" first began to take place, writers usually thought of H the country" rather than of the people of the country. Thus a country of great wealth was supposed to be one in which there were large quantities of the things which were regarded as constituting riches, whether the people of the country were well-off or not. A very thickly peopled country is, of course, likely to have a large aggregate of such things i~ proportion to its area, and a thinly peopled country only a small quantity. Hence China and India were regarded as enormously rich, even when it was admitted that the peoples of those countries were very poor. This kind of comparison is still often made between the H countries" of to-day. We are still inclined to speak of a sparsely peopled country as H a poor country," even if its few inhabitants are very comfortable, unless there is something which suggests the potentiality of larger numbers in the future.

263 264 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES The more humane spirit of the eighteenth century, however, set up in place of, or perhaps we should only say alongside of, the old comparison of " coun tries" a comparison of (t nations" in the sense of the persons of whom the nations are composed. Berkeley asked in 1752, in his Querist, "Whether a people can be called poor where the common sort are well-fed, clothed, and lodged?" The opening paragraphs of Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations imply that a (( nation" is more or less wealthy according as there is more or less wealth per head for the people of whom the nation consists. But it is noteworthy that Smith seems to have felt that there was something novel in his plan of treating the condition of the people as the important thing. He asks, much like Berkeley, whether an (( improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people is to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to the society," and quite patiently points out that these lower ranks make up the greater part of the society, and that (( what improves the condition of the greater part can never be regarded as an incon veniency to the whole."

In our own time no one thinks it necessary to argue the question: every one is used to comparisons of the wealth of nations being based upon estimates of the wealth of the people of whom the nation is taken to consist. It is, however, worth while to ask ourselves exactly what people do constitute nations in the economic discussions to which we are accustomed.

CUSTOMS AREAS In the,first place, we may notice that the old tribal significance of the word It nation" has entirely disappeared. We do not attempt to compare the wealth of French and German citizens wherever they may happen to be. What we do compare is the wealth of the inhabitants of France and Ger many, whether they are citizens or not, and without m~king any attempt to include those citizens who are living abroad. This does not appear to raise any really important question. Most citizens living abroad have left their country for good, and, if not themselves about to become citizens of the country they are inhabiting, will at least have children who will be citizens of that country and who will eventu ally inherit their property, wherever situated. To attempt to distinguish between those who have gone for good and those who will return would be useless. Secondly, it is worth while to observe that the countries of which the inhabitants constitute the II nations" dealt with are almost invariably countries with independent systems of customs duties. We nearly always in economic discussions trea t the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Jamaica as separate nations: we treated New South Wales and the other Australian colonies as separate nations till they were amalgamated in the Commonwealth, and then straightway abandoned the practice: we never think of treating Massachusetts and Texas as separate nations, since they are both inside the fiscal system of the United States.

It is easy to explain this identification of nations 266 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES with groups of persons surrounded by a customs line. The levying of customs, as soon as any proper accounts of the amounts paid are kept, has always necessarily resulted in the collection of statistics of at any rate a part of the trade carried on between the people inside the boundary and those outside it, and these statistics have always become public. The natural interest which has been felt in them has led to a demand for completeness in them, which has eventually induced all the most civilized nations to publish annual returns which seem to give a very lull and accurate account of the amount and'value of the whole of the goods passing in either direction across the frontiers, whether taxed or not. The publication of these accounts makes us think of the people inhabiting each of the customs areas as a united whole, trading as a single unit, in a way in which we do not think of the inhabitants of other areas, except occasionally and with a considerable effort.

Explanation, however, here as well as elsewhere, must not be mistaken for justification. There is clearly no scientific foundation for singling out the inhabitants of the areas which happen to be within each customs boundary as worthy of a consideration which the inhabitants of other areas do not receive. There is no good reason for assuming that it was impossible to say anything useful about the wealth or material welfare of the people of Australia before the Commonwealth was inaugurated, and that since that time it has been impossible to say anything useful about the wealth or material welfare of the SMALL AREAS inhabitants of New South Wales and Victoria. No doubt customs duties do give a certain unity to the inhabitants of the area surrounded by the fiscal barrier, but it is only the same kind of unity as is given by any other common system of taxation, and the fact that it exists affords no reason for neglecting the general question, U What determines the com parative wealth of the inhabitants of different territories, whether surrounded by fiscal barriers or not? "

§ 2. The Wealth of the Inhabitants of Small A,eas. The question, What determines the comparative wealth of the inhabitants of different areas? can be best approached by beginning with the smallest possible example, that in which the territory is so tiny that it is only inhabited by a single family. Let us ask ourselves what determines the material welfare of the inhabitants of some spot, it may be of a few acres or only of a few yards in extent, when those inhabitants consist, say, of a man, his wife, and their young children. Every one will recognize at once that this is a personal matter, dependent on the original qualitie~ of the persons concerned, their energy and industry, the occupations for which training has fitted them, and finally the amount of property which they own. We should not think of attributing differences simply to the fact that one family lived on an infertile area, another on a fertile one, nor to the fact that one lived where there were no minerals at all and the other at the mouth of a coal or gold mine. We should expect such differences 268 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES in natural surroundings to be counterbalanced by differences in the rent the families would have to pay if they did not own the land, and if they did own the land we should regard the resulting differences as the consequence of differences in the amount of property held by them, just as much as if the pro perty they owned was somewhere else. Nor would anyone think of attributing the superiority of one family over that of another to the one having adopted a superior tt fiscal policy." The idea of (( fiscal policy" in relation to the single family would not be likely to occur to anyone.

Yet some at least of the ideas embodied in the fiscal policies of the past and present could conceivably be carried out. The medireval maxim that money should on no account be allowed to go out of the country could· be carried out if the family refused to buy any thing from outside. The later maxim that trade must be so regulated as to bring as much money as possible into the country by a (( favourable balance" could be carried out much more easily by a family than it ever could be by a State; all that would be necessary would be for the family to be careful not to spend in purchases as much money as it got by sales, and not 'to lend out the surplus nor even deposit it in banks, but put the money in a stocking or a hole in the ground. The self-sufficiency of the territory, which the advocates of one fiscal policy desire so strongly, could be obtained in any required degree by abstention from purchases of commodities and services, even when it was evidently easier to procure these things by the indirect method of making other LARGER AREAS things, selling them for money, and then buying what was wanted with the money so obtained.

Finally, full employment could doubtless be secured quite easily by simply attempting to produce every thing required on the given spot; the employment might not receive much remuneration, but that is another matter, usually regarded as immaterial by the fiscaliters. All these theories would seem ridiculous when applied to the single family. § 3. The Wealth of the Inhabitants of Larger Areas. Now let us take as examples the inhabitants of somewhat larger territories, such as English counties. To give a touch of reality we will take two actual counties, Hereford and Durham, but we need not trouble about the precise facts, nor even commit ourselves to any opinion on tne question whether the people of Durham or Herefordshire are actually the better off. All we have to do is to consider the main factors on which the answer to that question must depend. First among these factors we may mention, as in the case of the single families just above, the different original qualities of the two groups of inhabitants. Inferiority in efficiency is constantly given as the explanation of the lower earnings of one large group of persons as compared with another large group carrying on the same kind of work in a different place. It is commonly said, for example, that the superiority of agricultural wages in the North of England is due to the greater efficiency·of the workers. If the people of Durham are, on the 270 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES average, gifted with greater strength of mind or body than the people of Herefordshire we should expect them to earn more in the same time and so to be better off. Whether the two groups produce for their own consumption or for sale to others out side their territories will make no difference. If for their own consumption, the group producing most will obviously be better off than the other; if they sell to outsiders, they will have to sell in the world market and consequently at the same price.

The only difficulty here is to 'account for the differences in personal qualities. Climate, no doubt, may have some influence. The Durham men, some will say, are superior because they live in a colder and drier part of the country, but there is probably little in this. Others will speak of differenc~s of race, and say the Durham men are taller and stronger in consequence of the immigration of Northmen more than a thousand years ago; this is probably more important, though the assimilation of races by migration and intermarriage inside England has been proceeding for all that time. Possibly, too, the fact that the population of Durham has been increased largely by immigration, while Hereford shire has not attracted immigrants nor even retained its natural increase, may be supposed to favour the efficiency of the Durham population. It is usually thought that the people who migrate are superior to those who remain at home, and if this is so (it can scarcely be regarded as proved) a population largely consisting of immigrants, and possibly even a population consisting of the nearer descendants of LARGER AREAS immigrants, should be superior in quality to one consisting more entirely of natives and the descend ants of natives. There is also usually less inbreeding among a population which is gaining by migration, and inbreeding is often considered inimical to efficiency.

Secondly, as in the case 'of the single family, we have to think of the different occupations of the inhabitants of the two territories. Herefordshire is a county inhabited chiefly by agriculturists and persons whose trade must be carried on in the vicinity of agriculturists. The only town of any magnitude is the county town, and that is little more than the necessary commercial and legal centre of such an agricultural district. But Durham, which has an agricultural population of nearly the same size as Herefordshire, has in addition about two persons engaged in shipbuilding and seven engaged in mining to every one engaged in agriculture. It follows that the comparative material welfare of the inhabitants of Durham and Herefordshire must largely depend on the material advantages of the agricultural occupations compared with those of shipbuilding and mining. If shipbuilders and miners are better off than agriculturists, the people of Durham will be better off than the people of Herefordshire.

Consequently we have to ask ourselves why the inhabitants of some districts submit to belong chiefly to the poorly paid occupations while the inhabitants of other districts manage to adopt the better paid. We may, I suppose, attribute some small part of the phenomenon to differences in 272 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES efficiency. The less efficient people are less likely to bring up each new generation to the best paid kinds of work than the more efficient. But this is a trifling matter compared with the simple fact that it is convenient for persons carrying on one trade to live and work principally or wholly in some places, and for people carrying on other trades to live and work principally or wholly in other places. It is not because the people of Hereford are weak, stupid, and wanting in energy that Hereford has not as many miners and shipbuilders as Durham, but because it has neither coal nor sea-coast. It is not because the inhabitants of Oxfordshire and Cam bridgeshire have some hereditary cleverness that they happen to contain an extraordinary proportion of well-paid teachers, but because some long-forgotten accident placed the two Universities in the county towns. It is not owing to the enervating nature of the climate of Poplar and West Ham, nor to the inferior character inherited from the particular Anglian families who settled there in the fifth or sixth century that those districts contain a large proportion of the worst-paid class of urban manual labour, but because the docks are there. The inevitable conclusion is that geographical features and those incidents which, because we know very little about them, we call historical accidents, play a great part in settling whether people who are well paid for their labour or people who are ill paid live in any given district.

Thirdly, again as in the case of the single family, the differing amounts of property owned by the LARGER AREAS 273 inhabitants of different territories is an important factor in determining their comparative material welfare. The amount owned by the inhabitants is not to be confused with the amount of property apparently situated within the territory.l In Dur ham the whole of the land and other immovable property is worth considerably less per head of population than the same kind of property in Here fordshire. Movable property is probably more important in Durham than in Herefordshire, and might thus restore the balance. But if we found that the total property thus connected with the two counties worked out to exactly the same value per head of population, should we be justified in assum ing equality between the two populations so far as property was concerned? Certainly not, since the inhabitants of each county own much property outside it, and many persons who are not inhabitants own much property inside it. Equality would only be present if the balance of the two amoun.ts was the same in the two counties. In fact, the balance is probably in favour of the inhabitants of Hereford shire. It is probable that the amount of property held outside Herefordshire by inhabitants of Here fordshire exceeds in value the property within Herefordshire held by people living outside, whereas the contrary is probably true of Durham.

1 I say " apparently II situated, because a great deal of pro perty in modem times cannot be cut up and have its several parts attributed to the different small localities. in which as a whole it is situated. At first sight it appears possible to allocate it, but the experience of the American property taxes shows that the possibility is only apparent. / 274 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES Does anyone ask why this should be so? Simply because owners of agricultural properties lind it pleasant and convenient to live on them, while owners of mining and shipbuilding properties do not. Neither a colliery nor a shipyard are pleasant things for a wealthy person to live alongside of, and there is the further fact that the shipyards belong largely to shareholders whose avocations lie elsewhere. There can be no doubt about the importance of this cause of difference whenever small territories are under comparison. The inhabitants of Mayfair are richer than those of Wapping, because a richer class of persons select Mayfair for their residence.

The average wealth of the people of Sussex is in creased by the fact that it is a pleasant place of residence and convenient for London work or amuse ment. The parish of Dornoch must have had the wealth of its inhabitants enormously increased, and the county of Sutherland must ha~e had the wealth of its inhabitants considerably increased simply by the fact that Mr. Carnegie chose to live at Skibo Castle instead of nearer the sources of his riches. This is all fairly simple. The only question is whether in the case of territories as large as English coun ties it is true, as in that of the smallest possible localities, that we should not think of attributing the superiority in material welfare of one whole popula tion over that of another directly to the fact that the one lived on an area which was more fertile or contained a better or more accessible underground store of minerals than the other. What the question comes to in our example is this: Are the natural LARGER AREAS 275 advantages of Durham over Hereford-its possession of coal and a sea-coast with harbours-entire1y appropriated by the owners of property (whether resident in Durham or elsewhere), or is there a certain part which is unappropriated and conse quently obtained by the mere propertyless workers ?

The question is not to be disposed of by a negation based on the proposition that if there were any such unappropriated item workers would migrate into Durham, with the effect of cheapening work and rais ing the value of property so that the unappropriated item would become appropriated. This migration into Durham is precisely what did take place for many years prior to 1881: so long as it went on it showed that Durham was attractive, and the fact that it was attractive was due to there being some thing unappropriated which tJie workers managed to get. But as between one English county and another a very small advantage will turn the scale in the matter' of migration. Migration such as is required does not mean the rooting up of middle aged people, but only a slight trend of the annual new recruits to the army of labour in one direction rather than in another. Moreover~ though such attractiveness may endure for several generations, it is properly regarded as a "temporary" pheno menon. Durham in recent decades has not quite succeeded in retaining the whole of the." natural increase" of its population. It is perfectly true that in time the immigration into such a district will cause its advantages to the workers to sink to a level with those of other districts.

276 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES If Herefordshire and Durham each had their own customs duties and had adopted different Ie fiscal policies/' the advocates of the Durham policy would contend that the inhabitants of Durham were much better off than those of Herefordshire, and that the superiority of their condition was entirely due to their fiscal policy: the advocates of the Herefordshire policy would contend that the inhabitants of Herefordshire were much better off than those of Durham, and that this was entirely due to the Herefordshire fiscal policy being superior to that of Durham. The important considerations which we have just dealt with would be ignored altogether unless the difference in material welfare between the two counties was so great that one of the two parties lost all hope of being able to show that the county which had adopted the policy it favoured was, in fact, the better off. In that case this party might begin to point out that there were other things besides fiscal policy to be thought of, but this would be loudly hailed by the second party (and secretly regarded by the first party) as a last and almost desperate resource. As things are, neither county having had the opportunity of adopting any fiscal policy, no one troubles himself about the facts, and no one is able to contend that the superiority of the one county over the other is due to its greater wisdom in fiscal matters.

But if statistics of imports into and exports out of each of these counties were collected and made available, it is certain that in each county persons would be found to contend that it would go to ruin LARGER AREAS 277 unless it carefully regulated its foreign trade by means of customs duties. In the remote past these persons would have contended that as money was very useful to the people of the two counties, and there were no gold or silver mines within their bound aries, it was necessary to prevent any gold and silver going out of the county when it had once been got jnto it. Later, they would have contended that this was a mistake, but that what was really wanted was a careful attention to the balance of trade and such a manipulation of duties and prohibitions as would secure a perpetually favourable balance and consequent net importation of gold and silver. Later still, when it had been conclusively shown by theory and experience that wherever there is a sound currency there will be a sufficiency of money -that, in other words, if legislators will look after the quality of the currency, the quantity will take care of itself-the advocates of the manipulation of external trade would have fallen back on special doctrines made up to suit the circumstances in which they found themselves. In Herefordshire, which exports agricultural produce and imports coal and manufactured articles, they would have contended that agricultural counties were always poor, and that the people of Herefordshire should therefore force themselves to become manufacturers or, at any rate, attract manufacturers from other counties by preventing themselves, either by prohibition or by duties, from buying manufactured arti~les produced outside the county. In Durham, which imports agricultural produce and exports coal and ships, ~ u 278 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES they would have contended that it was necessary for the physique of the people of Durham that they should grow inside the county all the food they required, however numerous they might be, and that their exportation of coal meant that they were living on their capital and providing their shipbuilding competitors with fuel to their own damage.

The advocates of manipulation in each county would have shut their eyes to the fact that the advo cates in the other were using arguments inconsistent with their own, and their opponents would in all probability have neglected to draw attention to the fact, so that the question at issue would have escaped all discussion on broad lines. While incon sistent arguments based on the special circum stances of each county were being used in this way, there would also have been some attempt in both counties to prove that if customs duties were imposed upon the importation of almost any article, an appreciable portion of the duty would be paid by the outside producers, so that the people of each county would gain something at the expense of all the others by imposing import duties, though it might possibly be better for all the counties taken together to agree to refrain from imposing any. In the fortunate absence of statistics of imports and exports, no one in either Herefordshire or Durham seems ever to have thought of advocating a (( county policy"

which should enrich the people of the county at the expense of outsiders.

NATIONAL AREAS 279 § 4. The Wealth of the Inhabitants of National Territories. We may now proceed to examine the case of (( nations "-groups of persons inhabiting areas usually larger than those of the biggest English county and invariably possessing independent systems of customs duties. There is no reason for supposing that the circumstances which we found to be the main factors in determining the com parative material welfare of the inhabitants of a couple of English counties are not also the main factors in detennining the comparative material welfare of (( nations." In the first place, there is the difference in the efficiency of the various nations due to difference of racial qualities and to the climate of the territory occupied. Of course, to explain a difference in efficiency as the result of original difference in racial quality does not take us very far. To complete our knowledge we ought to know why rac~ with small efficiency ha..ve settled in one place and races with great efficiencyin another. But in the present state of 'knowledge we cannot say much about this. All the earlier wanderings of the different stocks of mankind are wrapped in obscurity. We know a great deal about the reasons why the present North and South Americans are what they are, but we know very little about the reasons why Germany contains Germans, India Indians, and Cliina Chinese.

Nor can we say much about the probabilities of the future. All that seems certain is that at present 280 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES it is becoming more and more difficult for one stock to destroy another or violently dislodge it from a territory which it has once occupied. There are few stocks now left which are likely to yield place to others with the rapidity and completeness of the Red Indians and the Australian aborigines. It appears likely that there will be a very slow amal gamation of various stocks, and that while this is going on others will decline imperceptibly till noth ing is left of them. But meantime we are perfectly justified in treating original differences in racial characteristics as a cause of difference in efficiency, and consequently in material welfare. Original racial qualities are constan tly being modified by migration, and if we take the view that inbreeding is likely to produce inefficiency and "new blood " is likely to produce efficiency, we may s~ppose that a country into which there is a net immigration is more likely to have efficient inhabi tants than one from which there is a net emigration, since, ceteris paribus, there will be more new blood in it. And if it is true, as often alleged, that emi grants are generally superior to stay-at-homes, the country of immigration will tend to be superior to that of the country of emigration from that cause also.

The effects of climate are doubtless much more important in regard to the inhabitants of " national II territories than in regard to those of smaller terri tories such as English counties. We have no hesita tion in attributing any want of efficiency which we find in Italy or India compared with colder and drier NATIONAL AREAS 28I countries to the "enervating" character of the climate of a large part of those countries. But it is well to be cautious in this matter. It seems possible to live up to any given standard with less labour (of a given efficiency) in warm than in cold climates. The clothing, the shelter, and the food required are all less in amount. Consequently the refusal of the inhabitants of the warm country to work as strenuously as the inhabitants of the cold country may be the result of deliberate and wise choice.rather than of incapacity. We must remem ber, too, that the effects of climate are awkwardly mixed up with those of original differences of race, since it is doubtless true that the most energetic races have on the whole been the most successful in secur ing, not perhaps always (I places in the sun," but, at any rate, situations in the surroundings, including climate, which they imagined to be the best.

Whatever may be the truth with regard to the comparative importance of climate and original racial qualities, it will scarcely be questioned that the difference in efficiency resulting from the differ ences in these :twocircumstances is a more important factor in determining the material welfare of nations than in determining that of territorial groups of inhabitants inside the nations. But it is desirable to bear in mind that this is not because the nations are political units or because they have each a customs system of their own, but simply because they are bigger. If we had to divide the world into territories which differed in the extent to ,:vhich the efficiency of their inhabitants was favoured by 282 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES racial qualities and climate, we should use divisions still bigger than nations and disregard a good many international boundaries. The longest boundary in the world between two nations, that between the United States and Canada, would be disregarded, and so also would many of the intra-European boundaries.

Secondly, in regard to nations, as in regard to the inhabitants of smaller areas, we have to think of the occupations of the inhabitants. The time when it was possible to suppose each nation provid ing for practically all its own wants directly is past. Then it was legitimate to assume that the occupations of different nations were all the same except in so far as the richer would be able to devote a rather larger proportion of the whole of their labour to producing the less necessary articles. Now the growth of .international trade means that the people of one nation produce things largely for other nations as well as for themselves. Each people becomes to some extent specialized, producing commodities and even services which to a great extent are not consumed at home but are sold on the world-market. It follows that the wealth of the inhabitants of a national area is largely affected by the occupations followed by them. If, from whatever reason, they are predominantly engaged in occupations which are the poorly paid occupations of the world, their wealth will be, so far, less than if they were chiefly employed in the highly paid occupations.

The chief actual difference here arises from the NATIONAL AREAS fact that certain countries are more suitable than others for the residence of the well-paid commercial class. Just as the wealth of London is swollen by the fact that its geographical position has made it a convenient place in which to carryon the com merce of the world, so, though of course to a less extent, is the wealth of the United Kingdom swollen by the fact that London is in it. A good deal of historical change in the comparative position of different nations is due to the fact that progress in knowledge and the spread of population has altered the relative advantageousness of the different parts of the world. The shores of the Mediterranean at one time had the advantage in this respect: the discovery and use of the way round the Cape im proved the relative position of this country and the Netherlands: the Suez Canal perhaps worsened it and benefited the European continent: the Panama Canal seems likely to improve the position of the United States. Railways, of course, have immensely benefited inland countries compared with maritime ones.

Even in manual occupations there is a difference between different nations which causes some to earn less than others with only equal efficiency. It is obvious that in some countries agriculture and other poorly paid manual occupations engage a larger proportion of the population than in others. A country which exported nothing but wheat would have, ceteris paribus, a poorer set of inhabitants than one which exported nothing but mathematical and astronomical instruments. But the range is 284 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES not very great here, and on the whole we must pronounce this cause of difference to be of less importance in regard to nations than in regard to smaller areas, such as English counties. Thirdly, we have differences arising from the different amounts of property held by the inhabitants of the different countries. This has long ceased to be almost entirely determined by the number of people in the country and the amount of property within the country. It may happen, as it happened to the Transvaal when it was a separate country, and still happens, though in a less degree, to the Union of South Africa, that an overwhelming pro portion of the valuable natural resources of the country and of the instruments used in working them belong to people who are not resident in the country: or that some valuable property within the country, though it belongs to the inhabitants, has been provided with borrowed money, on which interest has to be paid, as is the case in India and Australia. And on the other hand, the inhabitants of a country often hold property abroad. Monaco is probably the richest country in the world owing to this cause, but for the larger countries it cannot amount to very much, being only at the extremes two or three pounds to the good and probably not more to the bad.

It is very important all the same, because it means that the income of the inhabitants of a country is not, as we are apt to think, dependent on the value of the things therein. There is no necessary con nection between the two. In modern civilization NATIONAL AREAS the inhabitants of a country, as such, do not own the country and all that is therein: they simply own their property wherever it may happen to be situated: the people who own the country are the proprietors, wherever they may happen to live. Fourthly, there may be some temporary but possibly very long-eontinued difference of earnings owing to some countries being H new H and others "old." By a "new" country we seem to mean one which has not been open to settlement from the parts of the world settled earlier for a time long enough to allow migration to fill it as full as the "older" parts. Owing to the somewhat smaller repletion of these territories with human beings~ the natural resources are not quite of such high value as they would be if they were situated in long,settled parts. The fertile virgin soil in Alberta is not worth as much to its proprietors as it will be when the distribution of population between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres has been rectified by a few more decades or perhaps centuries of migration westward. Meantime the mere workers who go get a slight advantage over those who stop at home. If they did not there would be no attrac tion. The attraction is really afforded by the migrants receiving a small share in the value of the natural resources.

So apart from any superiority in efficiency, such as I suggested exists in a country of immigra tion, we may expect to find some superiority of earnings in new countries from this cause, just as I showed we might expect it in an English county 286 THE WEALTH OF TERRITORIES occupying a position like that of Durham in the decades before 1881. As between nations we should expect this to be more important than as between counties, since the migration is less easy. The movement from Europe to America has been going on for centuries and is yet far from complete. It is likely that the workers of the new country and their descendants, considered simply as indi viduals, will benefit by the immigration of new workers, since these workers are always likely to be hewers of wood and drawers of water who produce things cheaply for the already established inhabitants. To oppose their arrival from the point of view of the intelligent individual is like opposing the arrival of horses: horses deprive men of some kinds of employ ment altogether, but raise their remuneration by cheapening products which they consume. If horses worked for wages, the arrival of further contingents would lower the wages of horses, but would do no. harm but good to the men workers.

In the same way, the arrival of Irish raised the position of previously established workers in the United States, and the arrival of Italians, Hun garians, and such-like raised the Irish already established there. But workers are apt to think of themselves as a class, especially if they 'have organizations of the nature of trade-unions, which necessarily represent a class rather than a number of individuals. Class feeling resents any lowering of the per capita income of the class, even when it is merely the result of the introduction of new members who have improved NATIONAL AREAS their own position by gaining admittance without worsening the position of the individuals already within the class. Hence it is natural, that the workers of new countries, especially when repre sented by their organizations, should favour restric tions on immigration. The most actually effective of restrictions on immigration are doubtless those which are inspired by race antipathy. They are imposed by people who say, II Which race is to fill up this continent? Yours or ours? We say ours." It may be possible that some of these can be defended on the ground that they segregate a race or races which have not as yet at any rate sufficient control over their own multiplication. If any people acts as if its ideal of progress was, in J. S. Mill's picturesque phrase, II a human anthill," it is probably desirable that it should be confined within as narrow limits as possible. It is better that it should learn that over population is an evil, and how to avoid it, in one country or continent,· than after extending it all over the world.