there is more
temptation to allow products to deteriorate, greater difficulty in
living always up to the old rigid standards. The words "English made" no
longer carry, even to English minds, the old guarantee of excellence.

In no small measure it may be that it is the example and influence of
America itself which is working the mischief; which by no means implies
that American example and influence must in themselves be bad. American
methods, both in the production and sale of goods, might be wholly good,
but the attempt to graft them upon established English practice might
have nothing but deplorable results. It is not necessarily the fault of
the new wine if old bottles fail to hold it. One factory may have the
capacity to turn out one thousand of a given article, all of the highest
quality and workmanship, _per diem_. If a factory with one tenth the
capacity strains itself to compete and turns out the same number of
articles of the same kind in the same time, something will be wrong with
the quality of those articles. I am not prepared to say that in any
given line English manufacturers are overstraining the capacity of their
plants to the sacrifice of the quality of their goods in their effort to
keep pace with American rate of production; but I do most earnestly
believe that something analogous to it is happening in the commercial
field as a whole, and that neither English commercial morality nor the
quality of English-made goods has been improved by the necessity of
meeting the intense competition of the world-markets to-day, with an
industrial organisation which grew up under other and more leisurely
conditions.

* * * * *

POSTSCRIPT.--Not necessarily as a serious contribution to my argument
but rather as a gloss on Professor Muensterberg's remark that the
American has no talent for lying, I have often wondered how far the
Americans reputation for veracity has been injured by their ability as
story-tellers. "Story" it must be remembered is used in two senses. The
American has the reputation of being the best narrator in the world; and
he loves to narrate about his own country--especially the big things in
it. In nine cases out of ten, when he is speaking of those big things,
he is conscientiously truthful; but not seldom it happens that what may
be a mere commonplace to the American seems incredible to the English
listener unacquainted with the United States and unable to give t