“I take the liberty to differ, Mr. Councillor of Commerce.  How then shall our German industries flourish, if they not protected be?  What for a doctrine is that?  Mr. Factory Director Spiegelberg thinks only of jute.  Outside jute, the German world of commerce is greater, and with in-the-near-future-to-be-given railways facilities, vast and imposing shortly shall be.”

“What Mr. Councillor of Commerce just has said, is true.  You, Mr. Over-Inspector of Railways, and also you, Mr. Ducal Supervisor of Forests, are not merchants like us, but much-skilled specialists; so is the point of view different, Mr. Town Councillor Balhorn, you have given us most brilliant beer to-night.  This is no beer of here, it must be real Munich.  It tastes famous.  Prosit!”

“I thank you, Mr. Court Councillor.  In the place, gentlemen, of with-anger-discussing Free Trade, let us all drink some Munich beer.  Discussion is good, but beer with content is better.”

Now I put it to you—­could any one picture fifteen English business men in Manchester, Liverpool, or Leeds doing anything so sensible as to meet once a week amongst themselves, to acquire proficiency and fluency in French, Spanish, or German, all of which languages they must presumably require at times for the purposes of their business.  Every one knows that it is unthinkable.  No Englishman could be bothered to take the trouble.  Why is it that English people have this extraordinary reluctance to learn any foreign language?  It is certainly not from want of natural ability to do so, though this natural aptitude may be discounted by the difficulty most English people experience in keeping their minds concentrated.  I venture to assert unhesitatingly that, with the exception of Dutch and Russian people, English folk learn foreign languages with greater ease than any other nationality.  This is notably true with regard to Russian and Spanish.  The English throat is more flexible than that of the Frenchman or German, and, with the one exception of French, there are no unwonted sounds in any European language that an Englishman cannot reproduce fairly accurately.  We have something like the hard Russian “l” in the last syllable of “impossible,” and to the Scottish or Irish throat the Dutch hard initial guttural, and the Spanish soft guttural offer but little difficulty.  “Jorje,” which looks like “George” spelt phonetically, but is pronounced so very differently, can easily be mastered, and that real teaser “gracht,” the Dutch for “canal,” with a strong guttural at either end of it, eomes easily out of a Scottish throat.  The power to acquire these tongues is there, but the inclination is woefully lacking.