ribution of the population. In the year 1850 65 per cent, and in 1870
47 per cent of the working population were engaged in agriculture. By 1912
the proportion had sunk to 28.6 per cent.

It was inevitable also that Germany should share with the other Great
Powers in the work of colonial government. The adjustment of the relations
between the advanced and backward races of mankind is the greatest
political task of our age; it is a responsibility shared jointly between
all the civilised States, and when in the 'eighties and 'nineties the vast
regions of Africa were partitioned amongst them, Germany, late in the
field, asserted her claims and received her share in the responsibility.

Rapid economic development and a colonial empire--what was there in these
to cause hostility between Germany and Great Britain? The United States
have passed through a similar development and have accepted a similar
extension of responsibility far outside their own continent. America is a
great, a growing, and a self-respecting Power; yet Americans see no ground
for that inevitable conflict of interests between their country and Great
Britain which forms the theme of so many German books, from Prince Buelow's
candid self-revelations down to less responsible writers like Bernhardi.

The explanation lies in the nature of German thought and ambitions. When
Germans speak of "a place in the sun," they are not thinking of the spread
of German trade, the success of German adventure or enterprise, or of
the achievements of Germans in distant lands. They are thinking of the
extension of the German State. British influence beyond the seas has been
built up during the last four centuries by the character and achievements
of British pioneers. Downing Street has seldom helped, often hindered, and
generally only ratified the accomplished facts of British settlement and
influence. That is not the Prussian theory or the Prussian method. It is
for the State to win the territory, and then to set the people to work
there, on lines laid down from above. The individual Englishman, when
he goes out to colonise, carries England with him, as a part of his
personality. Not so the German, at least on the Prussian theory. "The _rare
case_ supervened," says Prince Buelow,[1] of an instance typical of the
building up of the British Empire, "that the establishment of State rule
_followed and did not precede_ the tasks of colonising and civilisation."
The State itself, on