THE COSMOPOLITAN INTEREST OF LABOUR 3 
have been on a level throughout the two countries and all other 
countries, and on the same hypothesis it is impossible that they 
can now be increased by 2d. a week in the victorious country and 
reduced by 2s. a week in the defeated country without causing at 
once a compensatory movement. The country which offers the 
extra wages will attract, and that which offers the lower wages 
will repel, until a level between all countries is again reached. 
The new level will, of course, be lower than the old by as much as 
is necessary to provide the whole of labour’s contribution, what- 
ever it may be—of course, property will contribute something— 
towards the total cost of the war, and thus labour’s contribution 
will be spread over all countries, including the victorious country. 
It will doubtless be objected that, in fact, the working popula- 
tion is not mobile. Butitis. In the seventy years between 1841 
and 1911 the population of the United Kingdom increased about 
70 per cent. Take this standard and compare it with what has 
happened in various other cases. If the population of Hereford- 
shire had increased 70 per cent. in the same time it would in 1911 
have been 193,000 instead of 114,000; if the population of 
Greater London had increased only 70 per cent., it would have 
been 3,800,000 less than it was ; England at the same rate would 
have had 9,000,000 less people than she had, and Ireland would 
have had a population of 13,900,000 instead of her actual 
4,400,000. Mobility such as this, it may be said, has always been 
admitted to exist within the confines of a single ““ country  ; it 
is as between different “countries” that mobility has been 
denied, and “ countries * for this purpose may be defined as the 
areas between which wars other than civil wars (in which nobody 
seems to be able to see any good) are prepared for. Let us then 
take different countries. We shall find that the population of 
Germany (exclusive of the annexed provinces) grew in the seventy- 
year period by about 10 millions over and above the United 
Kingdom 70 per cent. standard; that of France, omitting 
territory gained and lost, fell short by about 16} millions ; while 
that of the United States exceeded the standard by nearly 63 
millions, a number greater than the combined population of the 
United Kingdom and France in 1841 and nearly equal to that of 
Germany in 1911. Why have these immense changes in the 
distribution of population taken place ? Certainly not because 
each country is a population-ticht compartment in which increase