meal URE 
409° 
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 1897. 
THE NEED OF ORGANISING SCIENTIFIC 
OPINION. 
Ie 
“* Dear Sir, —You wish to know my notions 
On sartin pints thet rile the land ; 
There’s nothin’ that my natur’ so shuns 
Ez bein’ mean or underhand ; 
I’ma straight-spoken kind o’ creetur 
Thet blurts right out wut’s in his head.” 
‘There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness 
and poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look 
on what is barely better as good enough, and to worship what is 
only moderately good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to 
whom mediocrity has become an ideal!” 
LOWELL: ‘* Biglow Papers.” 
‘“ When a nation is unhappy, the old Prophet was right and 
not wrong in saying: Ye have forgotten God, ye have quitted 
the ways of God, or ye would not have been unhappy. It is 
not according to the laws of Fact that ye have lived and guided 
yourselves, but according to the laws of Delusion, Imposture 
and wilful and unwilful AZ¢staée of Fact. We must have more 
Wisdom to govern us, we must be governed by the wisest, we 
must have an Aristocracy of Talent. . . but how to get it? 
. . . done nevertheless, sure enough, it must be; it shall and 
will be.” CARLYLE: ‘* Past and Present.” 
M R. WILLIAMS'S little book, “‘ Made in Germany,” 
1 has considerably ‘“‘riled the land,” for, as most 
will know, it has attracted much notice. Shortly after 
its appearance, Lord Rosebery took it under his im- 
mediate protection, and discoursed upon it in public in a 
most interesting manner; and the fashion being thus set, 
many other politicians directly or indirectly referred to 
it. The Press throughout the country has contained 
articles innumerable discussing more or less superficially 
the issues which it raises. A rival volume has been pub- 
lished, under the title “The German Bogey,” to refute, 
if not its conclusions, its recommendations. Last, but 
not least, it has pricked even the departmental con- 
science ; and so great did the scare become, that the 
President of the Board of Trade felt justified, as he has 
lately told us, in ordering an inquiry into the matter. If 
report do not belie them, Sir Courtenay Boyle and Sir 
Robert Giffen entered on the inquiry with the desire and 
with the conviction that they would be able by the 
elastic agency of statistics to burst the big bubble blown 
in public by Mr. Williams ; and if this be really the case, 
the very guarded tone of their Report is particularly 
noteworthy. Whatever desire they may have had to 
curse, if they do not bless, they at least show no cause 
why fault should be found with his implied main con- 
tention—which is, not merely that we are being beaten in 
this or that direction by commercial rivals, but that we 
are fast proving ourselves incapable of understanding the 
altered conditions under which the world now works, and 
of acting in accordance with such altered conditions. 
Although the attention of the British public must have 
been in some degree attracted by all this cackling, yet 
there is no reason to suppose that the effect will be other- 
wise than ephemeral. It is clearly impossible to properly 
awaken John Bull from his stupid easy state of inordinate 
self-complacency, and whatever uneasiness he may feel 
fora time, he is soon reassured by comfortable optimism 
such as that displayed by political speakers like Lord 
Herschell and Mr. Ritchie in their recent addresses on 
NO. 1427, VOL. 55] 
foreign competition and trade, and when told that the- 
fiscal returns show that business is improving, and that 
after all we are not doing so badly. 
In fact, although ill at ease, the nation is incapable of 
appreciating the true depth and nature of its “ unhap- 
piness.” Few of those Who have criticised Mr. Williams, . 
or even of those who have applied his arguments, are 
capable of fully understanding their force ; the condition: 
which he diagnoses as existing throughout the country 
must be judged by criteria other than those which mere 
Statistics afford, or which are patent to politicians and 
the present race of statesmen. 
Nothing could be further from the truth than a state- 
ment such as that recently made in the Z7zes that it is. 
too often forgotten that foreign countries are simply 
making up leeway. German industry is developing and: 
prospering because it is conducted by methods almost 
exclusively forged in Germany, and which she alone of all. 
nations knows how to use systematically, regularly and. 
generally; because she has learnt how to organise and to: 
discipline and to properly officer her forces ; not because: 
she has paid attention to “technical” education—but 
because she alone has known how to organise a true 
system of education, and has introduced a valid discipline 
into her schools ; in short, because the nation has enjoyed 
a scientific education during practically the whole of the 
century, and is in consequence a cultured nation. 
The story told by Sir Philip Magnus and his colleagues, 
in their interesting and most valuable letter to the Duke 
of Devonshire, contains absolutely no element of novelty : 
we merely see from it that we have to congratulate 
Germany on her continued attention to the advice and 
guidance of that “Aristocracy of Talent” which only 
she, of all nations of the world, has seen fit to create, to, 
encourage and to properly utilise. 
But we are not alone in our despondency. France, 
equally with ourselves, is alarmed at and envious of the 
success of Germany ; her position is singularly similar to- 
our own, as she also suffers from the want of a true 
national ideal of education. That two peoples such as 
the French and the English should lapse into such a 
state of flutter, however, is more than passing strange, 
and betokens great uneasiness of conscience, as we can- 
not either of us possibly imagine that we are to be left 
alone to manufacture for the world, or that those whom 
circumstances have so long unfortunately prevented from 
contributing their fair share are for ever to be kept 
under. 
The ungenerous character of our complaints against 
articles made in Germany ought to be more obvious to 
us than it clearly is at the moment ; to say the least, it 
is disgraceful that we should use the selfish arguments 
we do, in order to rouse a feeling of responsibility in our 
country, especially as we thereby withdraw attention 
from the true nature of the evil. Germany has but done 
her duty and lived according to the laws of Fact, and 
guided herself thereby ; whilst we have followed the laws 
of Delusion, Imposture, and wilful and unwilful AZzs/ake 
of Fact—for however unpleasant Carlyle’s pessimism 
may be, it is impossible to deny the relevance of his 
conclusions to the present situation. 
Let us, then, awaken toa sense of our duty, and to 
a sense of the real source of the danger which not only 
a 
