My desire is to contribute, if possible, something towards the establishment of a better understanding between the two peoples by correcting certain misapprehensions which exist in the mind of each in regard to the other. At the present moment we are concerned with the particular misapprehension which exists in the English mind in regard to the commercial ethics--the average level of common honesty--in the masses of American business men. I have endeavoured to show, first, that the majority of Englishmen have, even though unconsciously, a fundamental misconception of the character of the American people, arising primarily from the absence of a recognised aristocracy in the United States:--that, in fact, the two peoples are, in the construction of their social fabrics, much more alike than the Englishman generally assumes. I have endeavoured to show, next, that if we were entirely without any knowledge of, or any prejudices in regard to, the code of commercial ethics at present existing in either country, but had to deduce for ourselves _a priori_ from what we knew of the part which commerce and business played in the social life of the two countries the probable degree of morality which would be found in the respective codes, we should be forced to look for a higher standard in the United States than in England. We have seen how it comes that Englishmen have, justifiably and even unavoidably, acquired the erroneous notions which they have acquired, first, from the fact that, in the rough days of the past, American business morality was, at least in certain parts of the country, looser than that which prevailed in the older-established and better constituted society of the England of the same day (and in the older communities of the United States itself); and, second, from the fact that the chief channel through which Englishmen must necessarily derive their contemporary ideas on the subject, namely, the American press, is, by reason of qualities peculiar to itself, not to be trusted to correct the misapprehensions which exist. Finally, we have seen that there exist in certain American minds some mistaken notions, not much dissimilar in character to those which I am trying to point out are present in the minds of Englishmen, about the character of a considerable section of the people of Great Britain; and if Americans can be thus mistaken about England, there is no inherent improbability in the suggestion that Englishmen may be analogously mistaken about the United States.