trangle concerns that compete with them
successfully, the average German merchant sticks at nothing. His maxim
is, that in trade as in all forms of the struggle for existence,
necessity knows no law. And he is himself the judge of necessity. The
history of German industry in Italy is full of instructive examples
of this disdain of moral checks, but one will suffice as a type. It
turns upon the struggle which the Teuton invaders carried on against
the Italian iron industry, which for a while held its own against all
fair competition. In their own country, the German manufacturers sold
girders at L6 10_s._ the ton. The profits made at this price enabled
them to offer the same articles in Switzerland for L6, in Great
Britain for L5 3_s._ and in Italy for L3 15_s._ Now, as the cost of
production in Germany fluctuated between L4 5_s._ and L4 15_s._ per
ton, it is evident that the dead loss incurred by the German
manufacturers on Italian sales varied between 10_s._ and L1 per ton.
But this sacrifice was offered up cheerfully because its object was
the destruction of the growing iron industry of Northern Italy and the
clearing of the ground for a German monopoly.[11] The spirit that
animates the Teuton producer, in his capacity as rival, was clearly
embodied by one of the principal manufacturers of aniline dyes in
Frankfort, who remarked to an Italian business man: "I am ready to
sell at a dead loss for ten years running rather than lose the Italian
market, and if it were necessary I would give up for the purpose all
the profits I have made during the past ten years."[12] To contend
with any hope of success against men of this stamp, one should be
imbued with qualities resembling their own. And of such a commercial
equipment the business community of Great Britain have as yet shown no
tokens.

[11] _L'Invasione tedesca in Italia_, p. 149.

[12] _Op. cit._, p. 150.

In Italy the Banca Commerciale was wont to send to every firm, whether
it had or had not dealings with it, a tabulated list of questions to
be answered in writing. The ostensible object was to obtain
trustworthy materials to serve for the Annual Review of the economic
movement in the country published every year by the Bank. In reality
the ends achieved were far more important, as we may infer from the
use to which all such information in France was put. There the
well-known agency of Schimmelpfeng, which was in receipt of a
subvention from the German Ch