And it must be confessed that here Germany had a very good case.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  And if Germany, approving Britain’s example, could only show herself strong enough to imitate it in actual fact, Britain at least could not blame her.  Besides, in her internal industrial development Germany was already showing her equality with England.  In her iron and steel manufactures, her agricultural machines, her cutlery, her armament works, her glass works, her aniline dyes, her toys, and her production of a thousand and one articles (like lamps) of household use, she was showing a splendid record—­better in some ways than England.  For while England was losing ground, Germany was gaining all the time.  England was becoming degenerate and lacking in enterprise.  The Zeiss glassworks at Jena have now become the centre of the optical-glass industry of the world.  Carl Zeiss, the founder, tried hard at one time to get the English glass-makers to turn out a special glass for his purpose, with very high refractive index.  They would not trouble about it.  Zeiss consequently was forced to take the matter up himself, succeeded at last in getting such glass made in Germany, and “collared” the trade.  The same happened in other departments.

A certain amount of friction arose.  The Germans at one time, knowing the English reputation for cutlery, marked their knives and razors as “made in Scheffield.”  The English retaliated in what seemed an insulting way, by marking the Fatherland’s goods as “made in Germany.”  With Germany’s success, commercial jealousy between the two nations (founded on the utterly mistaken but popular notion that the financial prosperity of the country you trade with is inimical to your own prosperity) began to increase.  On the German side it was somewhat bitter.  On the English side, though not so bitter, it was aggravated by the really shameful ignorance prevailing in this country with regard to things German, and the almost entire neglect of the German tongue in our schools and universities and among our literary folk.  As an expression (though one hopes exceptional) of commercial jealousy on our side I may quote a passage from a letter from a business friend of mine in Lancashire.  He says:  “I remember about a fortnight before the war broke out with Germany having a conversation with a business man in Manchester, and he said to me that we most certainly ought to join in with the other nations and sweep the Germans off the face of the earth; I asked him why, and his only answer was, ’Look at the figures of Germany’s exports; they are almost as high as ours!’ All he had against them was their enterprise—­commercial jealousy.”