A like necessity for making up lost lee-way dominates the simultaneous
movement towards commercial extension. Germany entered the commercial
arena long after England had covered the globe with the network of her
shipping routes and her credit system. To reduce the advantage gained,
and to bring up their own lines to a level, a subvention is to be paid
out of the national revenues. An examination of the four subsidized
lines originally proposed, to China, Australia, Bombay, and South
Africa, shows that they were meant to compete directly with existing
English routes. In the same way the projected Transmarine Bank is to
contend with the ubiquitous English banking and credit organization, of
which the Germans are forced to avail themselves. Indeed, the _Cologne
Gazette_ has lately computed that by the use of English carrying ships,
and by the payment of bank commissions, &c., Germany contributes a tax
of £25,000 a day to the wealth of this country.
Handicapped, however, as German commerce has been, it has lately made
great strides over-seas, thanks to its distinguishing qualities of
thrift and industry. German competition is felt severely in the Far
East, and has cut down profits at Hongkong to a minimum. And though
the bulk of the foreign trade of China remains with the English, the
coasting trade is rapidly passing into German hands. In South America
they have secured a still larger share of her trade; their agents are
active in the Pacific; and, besides the new territory of Lüderitzland,
more than sixty factories have recently been established along the
African coast, from Sierra Leone to Ambriz, while German influence had
apparently gained a temporary advantage in Zanzibar. The demand for
new markets is the more urgent now in Germany because the largest of
her previous markets, Russia, is being closed against her. Not content
with having sheltered themselves already behind an almost prohibitive
tariff, the Moscow manufacturers, alarmed at the success with which
their German rivals have transferred their plant into Russian Poland,
in spite of the difficulties and expense, now clamor for a Customs line
to be drawn between the Polish provinces and inner Russia.
The loud demand for new markets is not, however, really so urgent, or
sustained by such pressing causes, as the cry for colonial settlements.
It may be doubted whether Germany’s penurious soil possesses in itself
sufficient mineral and other resources ever to allow her to contend
with this country as the great manufacturer of the raw products of the
world.
It is rather England who must seek new outlets for her commerce, as her
old markets are exhausted or shared among new competitors, while the
amount of human energy she supplies, and its more than proportionate
productiveness, steadily increase, owing to acquired skill and improved
machinery. Germany’s first need, on the other hand, is for habitable
and agricultural colonies, where her surplus population may be planted,
and may not be lost to her. There is, therefore, no immediate cause of
hostile rivalry; and German expansion, with its orderly and commercial
instinct, may be regarded as a valuable influence in the spread of
civilization.