War-time financial problems

PRUSSIANISING BRITAIN 93

war, to carry with them a certain amount of efficiency.
It is certainly true that Prussian methods do very
well as applied to the Prussians and submitted to
by other races of Germans. On the other hand, it
is at least open to argument that the British method
of freedom, individual initiative, elasticity and
adaptability have produced results, during the
present war, which have so far been paralleled by
no other country engaged in the contest. Working
on interior lines with the assistance of docile and
entirely submissive allies, Germany has certainly
done wonderful things in the war, but it by no
means follows that the verdict of posterity will not
give the palm of achievement to England, who has
not only carried out everything that she promised
to do before the war, but has incidentally and in
the course of it created and equipped an Army on
a Continental scale, and otherwise done very much
more for the assistance of her Allies than was con-
templated before the war began.

It is untrue to say that we were unprepared for
the war. We were more than prepared to do all
that we promised to do. What wo were unprepared
for was finding ourselves required to turn ourselves
into, not only the greatest naval Power in the world,
but one of the greatest military Powers also. This
demand was sprung upon us, and we have met it
with extraordinary success. The whole idea that
Germany's achievement has been such as to warrant
any attempt on our part to model our institutions
on her pattern seems to me to fall to pieces as soon
as one looks calmly at the actual results produced by