Incomparably more important than even the right of holding public meetings has been the permission habitually accorded to refugees from one country to become naturalised in another. The right of asylum is perhaps more likely to be extended than withheld. The enthusiasts who make changes are, however, as a rule, not wealthy, and in the rare cases where a rich man is a reformer it is commonly difficult for him to transport his property, unless he has been making provision for the worst with almost unexampled caution. If we take some of the great emigrations, for conscience' sake, during the last three centuries, it is obvious that the Flemings, the French Huguenots, and the Palatines could not have settled in England and Ireland if they had not been allowed to work at the industries they were acquainted with. Similarly, if the Irish Catholics, who swarmed into France and Spain during part of the eighteenth century, had been denied everything but the right to be food for powder, the influx could never have assumed the vast proportions it did. Now there are many signs at present that the employment of aliens is getting to be regarded with disfavour all the world over by professional men and by artisans. Habitually, in the case of the learned professions, the State, influenced by native protectionists, professes to be alarmed lest unqualified persons should trade upon the credulity of the public, and declines to recognise, or only partially recognises, those who have not the hall-marks of its own degrees. The excuse is sometimes exceedingly plausible. Thus, for instance, the Medical Board in Victoria has refused to register a Chinese doctor with a diploma from a medical school in China on the ground that he had not studied ana-
