According to the German theory, the British race, at home and abroad, was wholly immersed in gain, and in a kind of pseudo-philanthropy--in making money, and in paying blackmail to the working-classes in order to be allowed to go on making money. {59} Our social legislation and our 'People's Budgets' were regarded in Germany with contempt, as sops and shams, wanting in thoroughness and tainted with hypocrisy. English politicians, acting upon the advice of obliging financiers, had been engaged during recent years (so grossly was the situation misjudged by our neighbours) in imposing taxation which hit the trader, manufacturer, and country-gentleman as hard as possible; which also hit the working-class hard, though indirectly; but which left holes through which the financiers themselves--by virtue of their international connections and affiliations--could glide easily into comparative immunity. From these faulty premisses, Germans concluded that Britain was held in leading-strings by certain sentimentalists who wanted vaguely to do good; and that these sentimentalists, again, were helped and guided by certain money-lenders and exploiters, who were all very much in favour of paying ransom out of other people's pockets. A nation which had come to this pass would be ready enough to sacrifice future interests--being blind to them--for the comforts of a present peace. The Governments of the United Kingdom and the Dominions were largely influenced--so it was believed at Berlin--by crooks and cranks of various sorts, by speculators and 'speculatists,'[2] many of them of foreign origin or descent--who preached day in and day out the doctrine that war was an anachronism, _vieux jeu_, even an impossibility in the present situation of the world. [2] 'Speculatists' was a term used by contemporary American writers to describe the eloquent theorists who played so large a part in the French Revolution. {60} The British Government appeared to treat these materially-minded visionaries with the highest favour. Their advice was constantly sought; they were recipients of the confidences of Ministers; they played the part of Lords Bountiful to the party organisations; they were loaded with titles, if not with honour. Their abhorrence of militarism knew no bounds, and to a large extent it seemed to German, and even to English eyes, as if they carried the Cabinet, the party-machine, and the press along with them. 'Militarism,' as used by these enthusiasts, was a comprehensive term. It covered with ridicule and disrepute even such things as preparation for the defence of the national existence. International law was solemnly recommended as a safer defence than battleships.