Cet animal est tres mechant;
    Lorsqu’on l’attaque, il se defend.

    This animal is full of spite;
    If you attack him, he will bite.

Well, gentlemen, this war has opened the eyes of some of us, and has confirmed the fears of others.  Not one of us wanted to fight.  Our hand was forced, so that we could not have abstained without national and personal dishonor.

Now, I do not think it is even yet realized that Germany’s methods in trade have been, and are, as far as possible identical, with her methods in war.  Let me rub this in.  As long ago as 1903, at a meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry, under the Presidency of your fellow-citizen, Mr. Levinstein, I pointed out that under the German State there was a trade council, the object of which was to secure and keep trade for Germany.  This council had practical control of duties, bounties, and freights; its members were representative of the different commercial interests of the empire; and they acted, as a rule, without control from the Reichstag.  You can read what I said for yourselves, if you think it worth while, in The Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry for 1903.

Let me give you a simple case of the operations of that trade council. Ex uno disce omnes. A certain firm had a fairly profitable monopoly in a chemical product which it had maintained for many years.  It was not a patented article, but one for which the firm had discovered a good process of manufacture.  About six years ago this firm found that its Liverpool custom was being transferred to German makers.  On inquiry, it transpired that the freight on this particular article from Hamburg to Liverpool had been lowered.  The firm considered its position, and by introducing economies it found that it could still compete at a profit.  A year later German manufacturers lowered the price substantially, so that the English firm could not sell without making a dead loss.  It transpired that the lowering of price was due to a heavy export bounty being paid to the German manufacturers by the German State.

It is the bringing of the heavy machinery of State to bear on the minutiae of commerce which makes it impossible to compete with such methods.  One article after another is attacked, as opportunity offers; British manufacture is killed; and Germany acquires a monopoly.  No trade is safe; its turn may not have come.

Much has been said about British manufacture of dyestuffs, and much nonsense has been written about the lack of young British chemists to help in their manufacture.  There is no lack of able inventive young British chemists.  Owing to the unfairness of German competition by methods just exemplified, a manufacturer, as a rule, does not care to risk capital in the payment of a number of chemists for making “fine chemicals.”  He finds “heavy chemicals” simpler.  I do not wonder at his decision, though I lament it.  There are also other reasons.  The duty on methyl