14 SEPTEMBER 1889, Page 9

GERMANS AND ENGLISHMEN. T HE German is just now the bogey

of the commercial world. That Germans make better men of busi- ness than Englishmen, and that our countrymen are losing their instinct for trade, is almost universally regarded as an indisputable, if exceedingly unpleasant fact. From every counting-house come alarming reports as to not only the cheapness, but the greater efficiency of the German clerks, who do double the work of Englishmen for half the pay, who are as well-trained intellectually as they are steady and industrious, who can live comfortably on in- credibly small sums, and who require little holiday and no amusements. And, in addition to the complaint that commercial prodigies, who will carry on corre- spondence in six foreign languages, and do book- keeping for ninety pounds a year, are crowding out. English clerks, we are told. that all over the East and in our own colonies the Germans are monopolising trade and driving out all competitors. In India they are to be found up the country carrying on concerns once owned by our own countrymen, while in China, in Australia, and at the Cape they are not less ubiquitous and not less successful. In a word, if the talk of many English merchants is to be taken literally, our commercial supre- macy, if not actually at an end, is fast approaching destruction owing to the fact that our rivals can now meet us on our own ground, and beat us completely. Yet though such talk has been the fashion for the last ten years, English trade has continued to expand, more and more Englishmen every year seek and make their liveli- hood in commerce, and, while in East Africa the Germans have failed, we have succeeded. Under such circumstances, not a few observers have felt inclined to doubt the truth of these dismal forebodings. Still, as far as we know, a real and satisfactory explanation of the matter has up till now never been given, and those who have refused to believe in the commercial decadence of Englishmen have been obliged to find their consolation in generalities rather than in specific arguments. A very able writer in the Times of last Wednesday, who signs himself " An ex- Foreign Merchant," has, however, supplied the world at last with an account of the actual position of the modern Englishman and of the modern German in regard to trade and commerce.

This writer begins by pointing out that a good deal of the supposed superiority of the Germans as clerks is due to the fact that those who come to London are picked men who have shown their capacity and general intelligence by leaving their homes to seek a wider field for their ambition. When such persons are brought into competition with those who have, as often as not, shown their deficiency in enterprise and energy by their willingness to enter a London counting-house, it is hardly to be wondered that the former succeed better than the latter. The young man who comes to England because he sees a chance of making his way in the world, is pretty sure to beat the youth who is put to sit on an office stool merely because his father does not know what else to do with him. To properly test the respective capabilities of the two races, they must be compared when both are abroad. Of English- men and Germans away from their homes, the " ex- Foreign Merchant " tells us he has had a considerable amount of experience, and he accordingly furnishes the results of his observations. In general, his remarks come to this. The men of each country have certain special good qualities, but the higher belong to the English. In fact, if we trace out minutely the substitution of Germans for Englishmen in the commercial world, we shall see that it is due to the working of a law akin to that of natural selection. The German is better fitted for the more mechanical forms of brain labour, the Englishman for the exercise of responsibility and judgment. Accordingly, the economic principle which, in the long-run, always imposes work only needing inferior powers on those possessed of lesser capacity, bestows the book-keeping on the pure Teuton, and the duty of supervision and direction on the

Anglo-Saxon. "If," says the writer we are quoting, "I

were establishing a business abroad to-morrow, I would take a certain number of Germans for inferior positions, and a smaller number of Englishmen for superior ones." The German, he found, attends more closely to method and detail, does more steady work, does not require after- noons for cricket or tennis, is far more painstaking in calculation, and is in every way a more serviceable machine. There, however, as a rule, his good qualities stop. He wants pliability of mind, is incapable of taking large and general views, is addicted to red tape, and "horribly afraid of taking responsibility." The Englishman, though " less dependable " as a subordinate, " is capable of bigger thiigs," and " when he has advanced to the higher ranks develops a readiness and self-confidence which make him then as superior to the German as he was formerly inferior." This testimony, which we feel sure is of great weight, suggests a very remarkable reflection. The " ex-Foreign. Merchant" declares the German to be wanting in, and the Englishman to possess, just those very qualities which we should expect to find produced under free political in- stitutions. Five or six generations of bureaucratic tyranny have made the German feel himself a portion of a machine, and have prevented him from being capable of acting freely as an individual. On the other hand, the training of the English race has made its members inde- pendent, fearless, and self-confident ; but, at the same time, has rendered them not easily amenable to strict discipline, and unfitted to obey orders with mechanical regularity_ Oddly enough, the writer mentions incidentally a fact which illustrates this, although its significance is not pointed out by him. The German, if a Hamburger, will, he declares, probably have the same qualities as the Englishman. But Hamburg, as one of the survivors of the Republics of the Hanseatic League, remains even now a free town, and its inhabitants have grown up under conditions almost as liberal as those enjoyed by Englishmen.

Next, the correspondent of the Times meets the com- plaint that trade in India and elsewhere is falling into German hands. The truth is, he tells us, that the Germans are only taking the import trade. The export still belongs to us. The reason is to be found in the very qualities which mark the difference between German and English clerks. To manage a large export business, judg- ment, in giving credits and great power of organisation is required. Here the Englishman easily surpasses the German, and finds his only formidable rival in the Greek. To import piece goods, however, into India, and to sell them to the natives, requires " minute perseverance, in- dustry, and willingness to take trouble about minutiae, and here the German excels." The Englishman, if he imports, wants to sell wholesale ; the German is not above selling his bale or even his piece direct. " The Englishman may, perhaps, condescend to sell a bale or to work for 1 per cent. profit. The German is willing to sell a piece, and to make a per cent. profit he is willing to waste hours." In addition to this, the writer of the Times' letter states that one of the things which handicaps the Englishman in the import trade, is the social loss of consideration which he suffers if he engages in retail business. The English- men who go abroad are generally drawn from a class which holds retail trade in abhorence, and carry their prejudices with them. Hence, if an Englishman takes to selling retail he loses caste. " He is sailing rather close to the wind if he sells a single bale, but if he splits the bale and sells by the piece he is anathema ; he cannot dine with the Consul or play tennis with the chaplain's daughters. The result is, he abstains from retail trade till wholesale trade abstains from him." As a remedy, the writer suggests,—" Englishmen who are not deterred by social influences from selling retail" should go abroad more largely than they do at present. If they will do so, they will, he declares, prove " adequate competitors to the Germans now almost alone in the field."

In our view, the statements of the "ex-Foreign Merchant," the substance of whose letter we have summarised, have very effectually laid. the German bogey. Practically the Teuton only succeeds where the Anglo-Saxon, for various reasons, does not choose to exert himself, or where the latter is not well-fitted to the work. The German is no more driving out the Englishman, than the kitchenmaid is driving out the cook. )Each has his own natural avocation ; and the Englishman's, looking at the matter in the broad, is invariably the better. Surely, it is a little unreason- able for our countrymen to complain of such a result. Complain they will, however, we are sure, for the true-born Briton loves to put heart into himself by pretending that he is fighting a losing game. Only under such a convietion can he go comfortably into action.