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 the facts as narrated their due proportion in the landscape.