German is always making the most of small things. He never draws back for a great effort; he is making small efforts continually. Sometimes ridiculous, usually most effective, always well satisfied with himself, he lives with his secondbest foot foremost.

274

XIII.

DOWN WITH ENGLAND!

That

WILLIAM II. is not, as I have explained already, adored by all his subjects. But at one point he gathers up the blind devotion of the younger part of them, and the enthusiastic approval of all. point is patriotism, which the German people, most rightly, regard as the first qualification of a German emperor. Ferederick III. squandered all his hoard of popularity during the three months of his reign, because he was believed to be led by his English wife. William II. recoups his heavy debts of personal unpopularity because he is beyond suspicion and beyond measure German. His whole life is a perpetual chant of "Deutschland, Deutschland, über Alles." He adds the corollary, "Wilhelm, Wilhelm, über Deutschland"; but Germany, on the whole, is quite willing to pay for the practical enforcement of the first sentiment with quiet acquiescence in the second.

The depth and fervour of the Kaiser's Germanism needs no excuse and no witness. Everything about him must be German-except, to be sure, his racing yacht, and trifles of that kind. It is true that he has many English tastes. But when the Germans cite that as a sign of his benevolence towards England I think they are more polite than discerning. Unquestionably the Kaiser admires us in many ways; but I think he imitates us in some, with a view to naturalise in his own country what he thinks valuable, the better to equip her for rivalry with us. He would like to see his nobility and officers sportsmen, to see his middle class tinctured with the spirit of the merchant-adventurer-very properly, from his point of view. On other points he is said to be even fanatically German. I pass over such tittletattle as that he once wrote to his mother to say that if she wished him to answer her letters, she must write in German, not English. It is said, though, that he cannot tolerate a French menu, so that the wretched cooks of the royal household have had to invent German names for every dish they send to table. In the best hotels of Berlin you will find a menu in German on one side, French on the other for the very German does not know what "Beef, loin piece, Niederschlossberg way," might mean until he sees it translated, "Filet béarnaise," on the other side. As for the Kaiser, they say his zeal for the

Neither masterpiece

be sure, but they show More outspoken are the "Greater Germany," his

German language goes so far that he cannot even do with the imported word "cigar." Instead, he endowed his people's tongue with the alternatives, "glim-stick" and "smoke-roll." is yet generally accepted. These are all straws, to which way the wind blows. Kaiser's many references to frequent unmistakable hints that he aspires to have his country one of the great imperial influences of the world. It is this that brings him up against England. Rivalry in trade, rivalry in projects of colonisation and empire-these, beyond question, are the chief springs that feed German hostility towards England.

Hostility, of course, could not have waxed and flourished as it has without a fertile soil to grow in. Competition in South Africa, or for the Peruvian export trade, is not enough to make two nations hate each other. As in England a Kaiser's telegram was the occasion, but the German clerk the real cause, of anti-German hatred, so with Germany the groundwork of dislike was the utter antipathy and repugnance with which the German regards our manners and national character. Both as a nation and as individuals the Germans detest us. True, they water their detestation with a sneaking admiration for our sports, our athletics, our clothes. In the German

sporting papers you will meet such sentences as "Trainer Brown, wird die letzten Galops seiner Cracks selbst leiten; sein Firststring, Little Duck, wird für die Chesterfield Stakes starten." But meet the man who talks this sort of language, and dresses in the nearest he can get to a covert-coat-and tell him he looks like an Englishman. In his heart he will rejoice, but he will pretend to be insulted. With the German anglomaniac, as with the Kaiser, it is some of our ways, not our whole selves, that are to be imitated.

Deep down there is a strong unity of nature between Englishman and German which fits them to become fast friends. Should chance strand the two together in a desolate place, they will usually get on admirably well together. "Of course," says the German, "because I am friendly with you, I do not therefore love England." "Well," answer you, "our countries may not get on, but that's no reason why we should not." And you do get on. After all, we are first cousins with the German and only second cousins with, say, the Frenchman. I assisted one evening during manoeuvres at a dispute between a German and a Belgian officer about the distance between Lille, I think it was, and the sea. The Belgian had got his country and the frontier mapped out in his hand into tenkilometre squares, but they went wrong somehow.