44 THE DECENTRALISATION 



in their industrial development, and especially 

 with regard to Germany. So much has been 

 written about the competition which Germany 

 offers to British trade, even in the British mar- 

 kets, and so much can be learned about it from 

 a mere inspection of the London shops, that I 

 need not enter into lengthy details. Several 

 articles in reviews ; the correspondence ex- 

 changed on the subject in The Daily Telegraph 

 in August, 1886 ; numerous consular reports, 

 regularly summed up in the leading newspapers, 

 and still more impressive when consulted in 

 originals ; and, finally, political speeches, have 

 familiarised the public opinion of this country 

 with the importance and the powers of German 

 competition.* Moreover, the forces which Ger- 

 man industry borrows from the technical tram- 

 ing of her workmen, engineers and numerous 

 scientific men, have been so often discussed by 

 the promoters of technical education in England 

 that the sudden growth of Germany as an in- 

 dustrial power can be denied no more. 



Where half a century was required in olden 

 times to develop an industry, a few years are 

 sufficient now. In the year 1864 only 160,000 



* Many facts in point have also been collected in a little 

 book, Made in Germany, by E. E. Williams. Unhappily, the 

 facts relative to the recent industrial development of Ger- 

 many are so often used in a partisan spirit in order to promote 

 protection that their real importance is often misunderstood. 



