REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EUROPE

Western Europe became a multiethnic society in a fit of absence of mind. Mass immigration began--with little public debate, it would later be stressed--in the decade after the Second World War. Industries and government in Britain, France, Germany, the Low Countries, and Scandinavia set up programs to recruit manpower to their booming postwar economies. They invited immigrants. Some of the newcomers took positions, particularly in heavy industry, that now look enviably secure and well-paid. But others worked in the hardest, most thankless, and most dangerous occupations that European industry had to offer. Many had been loyal colonial subjects, and had even borne arms for European powers.