That there has been and still is a good deal of mutual ill-feeling both in Germany and in England cannot be denied. Rivalry between nations is always accompanied by feeling which is all the stronger when it is instinctive and therefore, though not unintelligible, apt to be irrational. But what in this case is really at the bottom of it? There have no doubt been a number of matters that have been discussed between the two Governments, and though they have for the most part been settled, the manner in which they have been raised and pressed by German Governments has caused them to be regarded by British Ministers, and to a less extent by the British people, as sources of annoyance, as so many diplomatic "pin-pricks." The manners of German diplomacy are not suave. Suavity is no more part of the Bismarckian tradition than exactitude. But after all, the manners of the diplomatists of any country are a matter rather for the nation whose honour they concern than for the nations to which they have given offence. They only partially account for the deep feeling which has grown up between Great Britain and Germany.
The truth is that England is disturbed by the rise of Germany, which her people, in spite of abundant warnings, did not foresee and have not appreciated until the moment when they find themselves outstripped in the race by a people whom they have been accustomed to regard with something of the superiority with which the prosperous and polished dweller in a capital looks upon his country cousin from the farm.
Fifty years ago Germany in English estimation did not count. The name was no more than a geographical expression. Great Britain was the one great Power. She alone had colonies and India. She as good as monopolised the world's shipping and the world's trade. As compared with other countries she was immeasurably rich and prosperous. Her population during the long peace, interrupted only by the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, had multiplied beyond men's wildest dreams. Her manufacturers were amassing fortunes, her industry had no rival. The Victorian age was thought of as the beginning of a wonderful new era, in which, among the nations, England was first and the rest nowhere. The temporary effort of the French to create a modern navy disturbed the sense of security which existed and gave rise to the Volunteer movement, which was felt to be a marvellous display of patriotism.
There were attempts to show that British self-complacency was not altogether justified. The warnings of those who looked below the surface were read and admired. Few writers were more popular than Carlyle, Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold. But all three held aloof from the current of public life which flowed in the traditional party channels. There was no effort to revive the conception of the nation as the organised state to which every citizen is bound, the source and centre of all men's duties. Accordingly every man devoted himself to his own affairs, of which the first was to make money and the second to enjoy life; those who were rich enough finding their amusement in Parliament, which was regarded as the most interesting club in London, and in its debates, of which the charm, for those who take part in them, lies in the fact that for success not knowledge of a subject, but fluency, readiness, and wit are required.
The great events taking place in the world, the wars in Bohemia, in France, and in Turkey, added a certain, interest to English life because they furnished to the newspapers matter more exciting than any novelist could produce, and in this way gratified the taste for sensation which had been acquired both by rich and poor. That these events meant anything in particular to the British nation was not likely to be realised while that nation was, in fact, non-existent, and had resolved itself into forty million individuals, each of them living for his own ends, slightly enlarged to include his family, his literary or scientific society, perhaps his cricket club, and on Sunday morning his church or chapel. There was also a widespread interest in "politics," by which was meant the particular fads cherished by one's own caucus to the exclusion of the nation's affairs, it being more or less understood that the army, the navy, and foreign policy were not to be made political questions.
While forty million English people have thus been spending their lives self-centred, content to make their living, to enjoy life, and to behave kindly to their fellows, there has grown up in Germany a nation, a people of sixty millions, who believe that they belong together, that their country has the first call on them, whose children go to school because the Government that represents the nation bids them, who go for two years to the army or the navy to learn war, because they know that if the nation has to fight it can do so only by their fighting for it. Their Government thinks it is its business to be always improving the organisation of its sixty millions for security, for knowledge, for instruction, for agriculture, for industry, for navigation. Thus after forty years of common effort for a common good Germany finds itself the first nation in Europe, more than holding its own in every department of life, and eagerly surveying the world in search of opportunities.
The Englishman, while he has been living his own life and, as I think, improving in many respects, has at the same time been admiring the British Empire, and discovering with pride that a number of new nations have grown up in distant places, formed of people whose fathers or grandfathers emigrated from Great Britain. He remembers from his school lessons or reads in the newspapers of the greatness of England in past centuries, and naturally feels that with such a past and with so great an Empire existing to-day, his country should be a very great Power. But as he discovers what the actual performance of Germany is, and becomes acquainted with the results of her efforts in science, education, trade, and industry, and the way in which the influence of the German Government predominates in the affairs of Europe, he is puzzled and indignant, and feels that in some way Great Britain has been surpassed and outdone.
The state of the world which he thought existed, in which England was the first nation and the rest nowhere, has completely changed while he has been attending to his private business, his "politics," and his cricket, and he finds the true state of the world to be that, while in industry England has hard work to hold her own against her chief rival, she has already been passed in education and in science, that her army, good as it is, is so small as scarcely to count, and that even her navy cannot keep its place without a great and unexpected effort.
Yet fifty years ago England had on her side all the advantages but one. She was forgetting nationhood while Germany was reviving it. The British people, instead of organising themselves as one body, the nation, have organised themselves into two bodies, the two "political" parties. England's one chance lies in recovering the unity that has been lost, which she must do by restoring the nation to its due place in men's hearts and lives. To find out how that is to be done we must once more look at Europe and at England's relations to Europe.