THROUGH THREEFOLD TENSION 195 



embodied the aspirations of the working classes 

 and non-conformists in Great Britain and the 

 great mass of the Irish. These were the classes 

 best known and best understood in the United 

 States. Politics that involved their point of 

 view and their interests was intelligible to the 

 Americans, while the politics of the aristocracy 

 was unintelligible and hence repulsive. So far, 

 therefore, as the character of British problems 

 changed in the sense described, sympathetic and 

 cordial relations were strengthened. 



At just the period we are treating, moreover, 

 the effects of the vast migration of English- 

 speaking people that marked the middle of the 

 century were fully manifest. In the fifteen years 

 ending with 1860 4,700,000 emigrants left the 

 United Kingdom, of whom something like three- 

 fourths went to the United States. British 

 America was the announced destination of a mil 

 lion of them; but the drift of the newcomers 

 across the boundary from the provinces into 

 the United States was continuous and on a large 

 scale. The number who set out for the United 

 States direct was 2,900,00x3. 



Of the total from the United Kingdom Ire 

 land furnished, of course, the very great ma 

 jority. A million Irishmen emigrated to the 



