What economic value to the world has a nation which for more than forty
years has concentrated all its energy in peaceful industry? Does any one
deny that Germany's great technical and commercial advancement has been
a blessing in respect to the development of the world? Has not the
commercial advancement in Germany had the effect of awakening new
productive powers in all parts of the world and of adding new
territories which engage in the exchange of goods with the civilized
nations of the world? Since the founding of the new German
Empire, German foreign trade has increased from 5-1/2 to approximately
20 billion marks. Germany has become the best customer of a great number
of countries. Not only has the German consumption of provisions and
luxuries increased in an unusual degree, also that of meat, tropical
fruits, sugar, tobacco and colonial products, but above all else that of
raw materials, such as coal, iron, copper and other metals, cotton,
petroleum, wood, skins, &c. Germany furnishes a market for articles of
manufacture also, for American machinery, English wool, French luxury
articles, &c. One is absolutely wrong in the belief that the competition
of German industry in the world market has been detrimental to other
commercial nations.
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