devoted themselves to fostering industry, manufacture, and commerce.  The result of this systematic direction of the national energies by a Government of experts, continuously supported by the patient and methodical diligence of the people, has been a constant and remarkable advance of the national prosperity, a wonderful development of the national resources, and an enormous addition to the national strength.  For the last forty years it has been the settled policy of the German Government that her organised military forces should be strong enough in case of need to confront two enemies at once, one on either frontier.  Feeling themselves thus stronger than any other European state, the Germans have watched with admiration the growth of the British Colonies and of British trade.  It is natural that they should think that Germany too might expect to have colonies and a great maritime trade.  But wherever in the world German travellers have gone, wherever German traders have settled, wherever the German Government has thought of working for a site for a colony, everywhere they have met British influence, British trade, the British flag.

In this way has been brought home to them as to no other people the tremendous influence of sea-power.  Their historians have recalled to them the successive attempts which have been made in past times by German States to create a navy and to obtain colonies, attempts which to our own people are quite unknown, because they never, except in the case of the Hanseatic League, attained to such importance as to figure in the general history of Europe.  In the period between 1815 and 1870, when the desire for national unity was expressed by a host of German writers, there were not wanting pleas for the creation of a German navy.  Several attempts were made in those days to construct either a Prussian or a German fleet; but the time was not ripe and these attempts came to nothing.  The constitution of the Empire, promulgated in 1871, embodied the principle that there should be a German navy, of which the Emperor should be commander-in-chief, and to the creation of that navy the most assiduous labour has been devoted.  The plan pursued was in the first instance to train a body of officers who should thoroughly understand the sea and maritime warfare, and for this purpose the few ships which were first built were sent on long voyages by way of training the crews and of giving the officers that self-reliance and initiative which were thought to be the characteristic mark of the officers of the British navy.  In due time was founded the naval college of Kiel, designed on a large scale to be a great school of naval thought and of naval war.  The history of maritime wars was diligently studied, especially of course the history of the British navy.  The professors and lecturers made it their business to explore the workings of Nelson’s mind just as German military professors had made themselves pupils of Napoleon.