“I have often thought of these things when I have heard manufacturers bewailing German competition. The war has produced many strange intellectual somersaults, and it is curious to notice how many Free Traders are now eager for the destruction, not temporarily, but permanently, of German trade. A few months ago they would have preached in season and out on the advantage to England of receiving cheap goods, they would have extolled German scientific methods, and they would (with every right) have pointed out that a customer who buys forty million pounds’ worth of our goods is scarcely one whom we should wish to destroy. All these facts remain absolutely unaltered by the war. All that has happened is that a half-ashamed jealousy is no longer ashamed, and is masquerading as patriotism so successful as to have misled the majority of our countrymen—for a time. The day of reckoning will come, and we shall not then find it any better than previously to buy dear goods to please the manufacturers. Moreover, our men of business will not have learned scientific methods by the end of the war. A publisher’s circular that I recently received appealed, on patriotic grounds, for the purchase of a book on applied science. I am not very cynical, but I confess that I distrust these trade appeals to patriotism. The true patriot does not advertise his patriotism in order to make money. In this case the work was well known and important, but it was interesting to observe that almost every one of the contributors was German, and that the rest were German-Swiss. Surely, in spite of its horror, there are many things in this contest to make the gods laugh.”[74] BRITISH RECOGNITION. It is pleasant to find recognition of Germany’s commercial deserts among British commercial men. The annual conference of the United Kingdom Commercial Travellers’ Association was opened at the Town Hall, Manchester, on May 24, 1915. Sir William Mather, who was unanimously elected president, referred to Germany as follows: The position of Germany in the world of commerce had been attained as the result of years of patient and persistent organisation, of close application to business, of exhaustive and careful research work, and full appreciation of the requirements and necessities of the markets for which she was catering, and a determination to meet those requirements in strict accordance with the wishes and needs of her potential customers. Behind all the efforts had been lavish financial support by the German Government, and the pledging of national credit for individual and private enterprise.