He pitched his tents upon debatable trade lands. His rivals
called it economic penetration, because he invariably took root. For him
it was merely good business.
Then England suddenly realised that Germany had left her behind in the
race for international commerce. Indifference lay at the root of this
backsliding. It was easier and cheaper to buy the German-made product
and reship it than to produce the same article at home. Sloth hung like
a chain on English energy. What did it matter? No forest of bayonets
hemmed her in; she was still Mistress of the Seas.
Meantime Germany dripped with efficiency and ached with expansion. Her
amazing teamwork between state and business, stimulated by an interested
finance, drove her on to a place in the sun. The shadows seemed far away
when the great war crashed into civilisation. Then England woke to the
folly of her blindness. The mystery of coal-tar products was shut up in
a German laboratory; the secrets of tungsten, necessary to the toughest
steel, were imprisoned in a Teutonic mill; and so on down a long list of
products vital to industry and defence.
Even those early and tragic reverses of the war did not stir the stolid
British bulk. Men fought for a chance to fight; restriction still
oppressed factory output. Red tape vied with tradition to block the path
of military and industrial preparation.
Then the Lion stirred; the sloth fell away; men and munitions were
enlisted; the strong hand was put on labour tyranny; conscription
succeeded the haphazard voluntary system.
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