h they were matters that concerned only the particular
business firms engaged in them was no longer an economical error, it
was also a political blunder. To Government meddling in trade and
industry the British people have ever been averse. And their dislike
is intelligible although no longer warranted. A glance at Germany's
economic campaign and its results ought to have borne out the thesis
that individual self-reliance and push are unavailing to cope with a
potent organism equipped scientifically, provided with large capital
and backed by the resources of diplomacy. New epochs call for fresh
methods, and the era of commercial and industrial individualism was
closed years ago by the German people. Co-ordination of effort, the
combination of politics with economics, and unity of direction were
among Germany's methods in the contest, and she adopted them in the
grounded belief that commerce and industry lie at the nethermost roots
of the vast political movements of the new era.

This is a century of co-operation, of joint efforts for common
interests, of union in trade, industry, labour, politics and war. To
stand aloof is to be isolated, and isolation means helplessness
against danger. Germany was the first Power to grasp these facts, to
understand the new phase of life and to adapt herself to it. For this
work of readjustment her people were specially endowed by Nature, and
in their equipment for the task they saw a mark of election set upon
them by their "old God." For the correlate of co-operation is talent
for organization, and with this the Teutons are plentifully gifted.
They feel impelled as it were by instinct to push forward much further
on the road already traversed by all nations from isolation to
individualism through gregariousness. They opened the new era of
amalgamation by co-ordinating, on a vast scale, individual
achievements, resources and labour, and directing them to a common
end. The allied peoples were meanwhile content to muddle through in
the old way. This difference explains much that seems puzzling in the
outcome of the struggle.

It has been affirmed somewhat off-handedly that the Latin and British
peoples, incapable of united and organized effort, have halted at the
individualist stage. They are supposed to lack the bump of
organization. According to this theory among the Germans, who had
passed through all the intermediate phases and carried individualism
to sinister extremes in the past,