after settling a dispute with a neighbour in consideration of a sum of money and a fruitful tract of land, issued the prospectus of the new company and began to do business on modern lines.

Almost from the very beginning the new company was a great success:  its situation was central; the company inspired its members with enterprise and spirit; it was industrious, energetic, and splendidly organized; and at last it began to cut into the trade of the old-established “monster.”  Competition might have gone on in the ordinary way had not the new company made a departure in business methods that gradually roused special uneasiness among the members of the “monster” firm.  Hitherto the latter had its delivery vans travel all over the town, and so well was this part of its system carried on that the firm acquired all but a monopoly of carrying and delivery.  The new company, however, now began to do a little in the same line, whereupon the “monster” took to building a superior type of van much more powerful and imposing, if also much more expensive, than the one previously in use.  The new company naturally followed suit, and in a surprisingly short time had built, or had under construction, several vans of an exactly similar kind.  The “monster” saw the new departure of their rivals at first with curiosity, then with contempt, then with anxiety, and finally with suspicion and alarm.  At the time of writing the alarm appears to have abated, but a good deal of the suspicion remains.  The town is the world, the “monster” Great Britain, and the rival company the modern German Empire.

It would require the Emperor himself properly to tell the story of his creation of the modern German navy, and if he has a right to call any part of his people’s property his own, he is justified in speaking, as he invariably does, of “my navy.”  As Prince William, his interest in the subject may have been originally due, as has been seen, to his partly English parentage, his frequent visits to England, and the fact that his physical disability threatened to prevent him taking an active part in the more strenuous duties of the soldier.  It is very probable that it was in the region that cradled the British navy the idea of a great German navy was conceived by him.  We have seen that the Emperor, as Prince William, showed his enthusiasm in the matter by delivering lectures on it in military circles, though it was not his lot, but that of his brother Henry, to be assigned the navy as a profession.  In his Order to the Navy on ascending the throne, he spoke of the “lively and warm interest” that bound him to the navy, shortly afterwards issued directions for a new marine uniform on the English model, and caused the introduction into the Lutheran Church service of a special prayer for the arm.  He gave a parliamentary soiree at the New Palace in Potsdam, and before allowing his Conservative and National Liberal guests to sit down to supper, made them listen to a lecture which occupied