e a clear understanding as to what this "duty" is. The German
idea of it would appear to be: "blind obedience to everything in
buttons." It is the antithesis of the Anglo-Saxon scheme; but as both
the Anglo-Saxon and the Teuton are prospering, there must be good in both
methods. Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be
exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him.
When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes
wrong with the governing machine. But maybe his method has the advantage
of producing a continuous supply of good governors; it would certainly
seem so.

As a trader, I am inclined to think the German will, unless his
temperament considerably change, remain always a long way behind his
Anglo-Saxon competitor; and this by reason of his virtues. To him life
is something more important than a mere race for wealth. A country that
closes its banks and post-offices for two hours in the middle of the day,
while it goes home and enjoys a comfortable meal in the bosom of its
family, with, perhaps, forty winks by way of dessert, cannot hope, and
possibly has no wish, to compete with a people that takes its meals
standing, and sleeps with a telephone over its bed. In Germany there is
not, at all events as yet, sufficient distinction between the classes to
make the struggle for position the life and death affair it is in
England. Beyond the landed aristocracy, whose boundaries are
impregnable, grade hardly counts. Frau Professor and Frau
Candlestickmaker meet at the Weekly Kaffee-Klatsch and exchange scandal
on terms of mutual equality. The livery-stable keeper and the doctor
hobnob together at their favourite beer hall. The wealthy master
builder, when he prepares his roomy waggon for an excursion into the
country, invites his foreman and his tailor to join him with their
families. Each brings his share of drink and provisions, and returning
home they sing in chorus the same songs. So long as this state of things
endures, a man is not induced to sacrifice the best years of his life to
win a fortune for his dotage. His tastes, and, more to the point still,
his wife's, remain inexpensive. He likes to see his flat or villa
furnished with much red plush upholstery and a profusion of gilt and
lacquer. But that is his idea; and maybe it is in no worse taste than is
a mixture of bastard Elizabethan with imitation Louis XV, the whole lit
by electric lig