In 1875 came the great Reichsbank Act, which consolidated all the
banking power of the empire. Then came her scientific tariffs which
put up the bars here, and let them down there, according as Germany
needed export or import trade in any quarter of the earth. The German
people, on a soil poorer than that of France, worked hard and long
hours for small wages. But they worked scientifically and under the
most intelligent protective tariff the world has ever seen. In a
generation they built up a foreign trade surpassing that of the United
States and reaching $4,500,000,000 per annum. By her rate of progress
she was on the way to distance England, whose ports and business were
open to her merchants without even the full English income tax. She
built the biggest passenger steamers ever conceived of and reached for
the freight carrying trade of the world. She mined in coal and iron
and built solidly of brick and stone. She put the world under tribute
to her cheap and scientific chemistry. She dug from great depths the
only potash mines in the world and from half this potash she fertilized
her soil until it laughed with abundant harvests.

The other half she sold outside so that her own potash stood her free
and a profit besides. No nation ever recorded the progress that
Germany made after the inauguration of her bank act and her scientific
tariffs. The government permitted no waste of labor, no
disorganization of industry. Capital and labor could each combine, but
there must be no prolonged strikes, no waste, no loss; they must work
harmoniously together and for the upbuilding of the empire.

Germany did not want war except as means to an end. She wanted the
fruits of her industry. She wanted her people, her trade, and her
commerce to expand over the surface of the earth, but to be still
German and to bring home the fruit of German industry.

Germany has been at war--commercial war--with the whole world now for a
generation, and in this warfare she has triumphed. Her enterprise, her
industry, and her merchants have spread themselves over the surface of
the earth to a degree little realized until her diplomacy again slipped
and the present war followed--such a war as was planned for by nobody
and not expected even by herself. She was giving long credits and
dominating the trade of South America. She had given free trade
England a fright by the stamp, "Made in Germany." She was pushing
forward through Pol