the distinguishing marks of German economic life, and I look for further progress on all these lines. It seems certain that there will be a large development in the State regulation of important 'key' industries, not only from the military standpoint, but from that of economic efficiency and public utility as well. It is not improbable that State monopolies will be established; and it will not be surprising if the Governments of those States in which the coal and lignite measures lie-particularly Prussia, Saxony, and Bavaria-should decide to take over the entire colliery industry, with a view to large contributions therefrom towards taxation, to the better development and at the same time conservation of these sources of national wealth, and to the protection of the public against undue exploitation. Already the Prussian and Saxon Governments are large colliery proprietors, and they have shown that State ownership is not inconsistent with efficient management. The potash mines, in which the Prussian State is likewise largely interested as a proprietor, may also be regarded as a fair subject for monopolist experiment. Already the problem of cheap power has been to a large extent solved by the development of central electrical works, some in private, others in public hands, others again conducted as joint undertakings; and further progress will no doubt be made on the same lines, perhaps with greater emphasis upon the principle of State ownership or at least cooperation.

As an instance of intelligent anticipation of postbellum requirements, let me mention a striking measure which has just been adopted in Saxony, one of the two industrial 'hubs' of Germany, and a country which offers severe competition to our own in the textile, hosiery, and machine industries. Last October the Saxon Government passed two laws with the object of breaking down the power of the electrical trusts, and ensuring a cheaper supply of electric current throughout the whole country. For some time the trusts had been gaining ground too fast; and the communes in consequence appealed to the Government for help. Now the State has stepped in, and taken under its control the entire electrical power industry, in which it has a great interest because of the State railways. It has been empowered to buy up any undertakings it likes, to forbid the use of public roads,

forests and other land by private companies, and even to annul way-leaves and other rights of the kind already in existence. The idea is that electric current shall be produced wholesale by the State, but distributed locally by the communes to retail consumers; but the State will not make a profit on the business. Only existing undertakings in public hands are to have their rights respected. Further, as it is proposed to use for the generation of power the lignite which is found in such abundance in Saxony, a supplementary law was passed at the same time prohibiting the sale of lignite mines until the State had decided how far it should increase its own holding in collieries. It is significant that both these fargoing laws were passed unanimously by the Saxon Lower House, and that even in the Upper House the electricity bill went through without any opposition, while against the colliery bill only eleven votes were recorded. Saxony is only following, on a more ambitious scale, the example set by the Government of Bavaria, which is using the abundant water resources of the kingdom in the production of electric current for industrial purposes.

Sooner or later, Germany will also profit largely by the practical faith in education which she has shown in the midst of the distractions and financial difficulties

incidental to a great war. Instead of curtailing her education budgets, the Governments and public authorities have increased them, confident that the enterprise will bring its own reward. This subject is, however, too large for treatment here.

In the foregoing prognosis of the German industrial position I have purposely understated my true opinions on the subject of Germany's recuperative power and her ability to redeem the time which she has misspent, to others' hurt as well as her own, during the past three years. No one likes to be a false prophet; and an attitude that leans towards optimism rather than pessimism is the best and sanest working principle in all situations in life. I have never shared the alarmist views of those writers who periodically try to make the British trader's flesh creep with depressing stories of the doom which awaits him; and, moreover, appeals to fear are seldom stimulating. Rather I have always believed that Great Britain has allowed Germany to forge ahead

from sheer supineness, and a proud, 'devil-may-care' sense of national superiority. Yet I am convinced that it will be a fatal mistake to underrate Germany's competition in the future. We are at this moment paying a tribute to her superior equipment for the commercial struggle by imitating her; I may instance the new education reforms, the extension of facilities for financing trade, the endowment of industrial and scientific research, and the proposal, as yet in the stage of discussion, for the production upon a large scale of electric current for industrial purposes. In these and other matters of almost equal importance we are years behind Germany; and it will be years before we can hope to overtake her, if we ever succeed at all. For in the commercial struggle with this resourceful rival, as in the military struggle now in progress in France, an exclusive system of open warfare is no longer possible. We have allowed Germany to strengthen an otherwise powerful position by setting up a large and ingenious system of dug-outs-all those measures of so-called 'peaceful penetration,' some quite legitimate, others open to severe criticism, which have secured for her so strong a hold upon the territories she has commercially invaded; and to drive her from these will be a hard work of time. It may be remarked here that one of the most fertile causes of Germany's success in her policy of 'peaceful penetration' in this country was the amendment of the Patent Law, requiring foreigners who took out patents in the United Kingdom to exploit these patents here. The result was that Germans who held valuable patents set up their own works in this country, rather than sell their rights for a trifle.

For that reason alone it would be inexcusably shortsighted to assume that the war will permanently weaken Germany or incapacitate her for resuming her interrupted course directly peace returns. Those British traders whose comfortable philosophy has in the past been summed up in the words 'Go to, let us jog on as usual!' must shake off their apathy for ever if they hope to hold their own. How widespread and persistent this apathy still is! In a letter written on June 7, 1861, to Milner Gibson, then President of the Board of Trade, Lord Palmerston said, 'As to the manufacturers themselves,

they will do nothing unless directed and pushed on. They are some of the most helpless and shortsighted of men. They are like the people who held out their dishes and prayed that it might rain plum-puddings.' There can be no harm in recalling these cutting words, for where they do not apply they cannot hurt, and where they do apply the more they hurt the better. The words are certainly no longer true-if they ever werefor our manufacturers in general, yet it is to be feared that they still have far greater point than should be possible after so long a lapse of time. It is only by abandoning altogether a waiting-and-watching, 'TheLord-will-provide !' attitude-as if the Deity were a commission agent-by ceasing to believe that miracles will happen, or that anything happens by itself in this world, by trusting less to chance and more to system, by allowing no advantage or opportunity of his own to pass unused and no device of his rivals to be unregarded, and above all by introducing into his business from first to last both the aid and the methods of science, and welcoming education as his best auxiliary and friend, that the British trader will make good' in the everincreasing severity of commercial competition. In proportion as he does these things, however, even German rivalry may yet leave him all the share in the world's trade which he needs or has a right to expect.

WILLIAM HARBUTT DAWSON.

Art. 9.-LORD GEORGE HAMILTON AND SIR CHARLES DILKE.

1. Parliamentary Reminiscences and Reflections, 18681885. By Lord George Hamilton. Murray, 1917. 2. The Life of Sir Charles W. Dilke. By Stephen Gwynn and Gertrude M. Tuckwell. Two vols. Murray, 1917. THE political Memoirs of the 19th century show the almost complete separation of the two camps. Only agreeable triflers and idlers had a foot in each at the same time. In one camp you hear only rumours of what is going on in the other. The relations between the Conservative and Liberal Parties were much like those between the men in Troy and the warriors in the Greek camp in the 'Iliad.' The Liberal Party in the 70's and 80's resembled the Greeks. There was on that side more variety, talent, personal ambition, individuality, intellectual vanity, tribal division, and consequently less unity and more quarrelling and rivalry. Mr Gladstone was their Achilles, a spoiled child of fortune, sometimes raging in the front of battle, sometimes sulking in his tent. Lord Hartington might be compared to Agamemnon; Sir William Harcourt to the weighty Ajax, if you add a cynical humour. Unfriendly critics might have likened Robert Lowe to Thersites; the virtuous Lord Selborne was a kind of Nestor; Lord Granville, the diplomatic go-between and pacificator, played somewhat the part of cunning Ulysses. On the other side, Disraeli was the unique and unmatched Hector, and he had a follower or two on the level of the pious Æneas -Lord Cairns, Gathorne Hardy, and, above that level, Lord Salisbury.

The strength of the Tory Party lay not in its intellect or eloquence or individualities, but in its natural unity and discipline. In this also it resembled the defenders of Troy. Every plain and healthy-minded English publicschool boy has sympathised with the Trojans against the Greeks and, when he arrived at Thucydides, with the Spartans against the Athenians, because it is the nature of Englishmen of this class to prefer silent militarism, such as you see on the cricket or football field, to intellectual volubility, or, as they call it, 'jaw.'