THE MIGRATION OF POPULATIONS 83 
involve difficulties in attaining to the densest possible 
population, the best distribution and the most suit- 
able forms of activity are not easily ascértained. They 
are obscured by the existence of various conflicting 
interests, and are by no means easy to analyse com- 
pletely. The different peoples of the earth cannot 
be regarded as immediately available for any admixture 
on a large scale, even if the language and political 
difficulties did not exist. What are known too as 
“ vested interests 7 greatly intensify other difficulties. 
The complexity of human interests is very great, but 
they must be adequately taken into account when 
considering even the migration question. 
At the risk of seeming to be leaving somewhat the 
matter immediately under review, we note some of 
the issues that influence peoples, when the consequences 
of certain policies are considered. In earlier times 
monarchs counted their subjects and estimated their 
resources, not always to organise them better for their 
own good, but in order sometimes to judge of the 
probability of success in thought-of schemes of war 
and plunder. To-day such action has by no means 
really quite vanished; rather, it may be said, often it 
has only been masked. Monarchs have been more or 
less replaced by other agencies which really govern 
peoples. And it may be said that nominal govern- 
ments may easily be more or less unaware of the opera- 
tions of the groups of personalities who—usually in 
more or less direct association—are actually giving 
direction to, or even controlling, the issues. The 
operations of these are of course not made patent, and 
the ethical impulses, awakened in order to justify any 
developments, are often of an order quite different from 
those which are really in action as fundamental causes. 
Such matters as these must necessarily be taken into 
one’s purview in all studies of the characteristics of 
human relationships. We have to bear in mind that