is
superior to that of Germany, that the domestic efficiency of the British
common people is greater, their moral training better, and their
personal quality higher. This is shown by a number of quite conclusive
facts of which I will instance merely the higher German general
death-rate, the higher German infantile death-rate, the altogether
disproportionate percentage of crimes of violence in Germany, and the
indisputable personal superiority of the British common soldier over his
German antagonist. It is only when we get above the level of the masses
that the position is reversed. The ratio of public expenditure upon
secondary and higher education in Germany as compared with the
expenditure upon elementary education is out of all proportion to the
British ratio.

Directly we come to the commercial, directive, official, technical and
professional classes in Germany, we come to classes far more highly
trained, more alert intellectually, more capable of collective action,
and more accessible to general ideas, than the less numerous and less
important corresponding classes in Britain. This great German middle
class is the strength and substance of the new Germany; it has increased
proportionally to the classes above and below it, it has developed
almost all its characteristics during the last half-century. At its
lower fringe it comprehends the skilled and scientifically trained
artisans, it supplies the brains of social democracy, and it reaches up
to the world of finance and quasi-state enterprise. And it is the "dark
horse" in all these speculations.

Hitherto this middle class has been growing almost unawares. It has been
so busy coming into existence and growing, there has been so much to do
since 1871, that it has had scarcely a moment to think round the general
problem of politics at all. It has taken the new empire for granted as a
child takes its home for granted, and its state of mind to-day must be
rather like that of an intelligent boy who suddenly discovers that his
father's picturesque and wonderful speculations have led to his arrest
and brought the brokers into the house, and that there is nothing for it
but to turn to and take control of the family affairs.

In Germany, the most antiquated and the most modern of European states,
the old dynastic Germany of the princes and junkers has lasted on by
virtue of exceptional successes and prestige into the world of steel and
electricity. But their prestige has