be, although an attempt has recently been made to
improve them. The British manufacturer is thus trebly handicapped.

Besides, the English competitor is at a disadvantage owing to what may
be termed systematic and fraudulent attacks, for which no redress has
been obtainable. Thus the manufacturers of Sheffield still complain, I
suppose justly, that German articles for foreign consumption bear the
words "Sheffield steel" stamped upon them. I myself have been approached
by a German swindler with the proposition that I should assist his firm
in infringing patents; he was surprised and pained to learn that I did
not consider his proposal an honorable one.

Nor are methods like these confined to business or manufacture; they
have greatly affected British shipping. Our shipping companies, in good
faith, have associated themselves with others in "conferences,"
apparently for the mutual advantage of all, forgetting that behind the
German companies lay the powerful mass of the German State. Tramp
steamers, and with them cheap freights to the East, have been
eliminated. The Royal Commission on Shipping Rings, which met some years
ago, referring to the system obtaining in Germany, and fostered by the
German Government, on charging through rates on goods from towns in the
interior to the port of destination, observed in its report: "Such rates
constitute a direct subsidy to the export trade of German manufacturers,
and an indirect subsidy to those German lines by whom alone they are
available. And as they are only rendered possible by the action of the
German Government, it appears to us that the British lines can in no way
be held responsible for the preferences which these rates afford to
German goods." Now, our Government pays large mail subsidies to many of
our shipping companies. Could these not be so utilized that it would
become impossible for Germans to capture our trade by indirect state
bounties?

These are a few examples (and your greater knowledge will enable you to
supplement them with many others) of the methods which have been
employed against us by Germans with the co-operation--nay, the active
support--of their State.

Of late a new factor has appeared. The German Imperial Chancellor made
his noteworthy (or notorious) remark about a "scrap of paper." And Dr.
von Bethmann-Hollweg, speaking in the Reichstag, acknowledged openly
that the German Nation had been guilty of a "wrong" to Belgium. This
breach of faith h