In various passages of the nineteenth century it seemed to be gravely compromised.

Capital, its mobility indefinitely increased by the improved technique of exchange, became essentially a citizen of the world.

The earth was all about it where to choose; its masters, falsely identifying patriotism with the Protectionism then dominant, struck at both, and the Free Trade movement philosophised itself into cosmopolitanism.

Labour, like capital, showed a rapid tendency to become international or rather supernational.

"The workers," proclaimed Marx, "have no fatherland." While this was the drift of ideas in the economic sphere, that in the political was no more favourable.
Belgium seemed on the point of extinction, Italy was a mere geographical expression, Hungary was abject and broken.