THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1908. THE REASON WHY?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9025, 11 January 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 1908. THE REASON WHY?

"Why is Germany so prosperous?" is a question which has been asked in many quarters at Home and abroad, and Mr Earl Dean Howard has just issued from the press in London a work that purports to show "the cause and extent of the recent industrial progress of Germany." Reviewing that work in the "Evening News," Mr H. Hamilton Fyfe makes some very interesting observations. "Germany," he says, "has become a great manufacturing country within the last 40 years. Before that she depended mainly on agriculture and small industries. She was forced to organise those industries on a large scale by the rapid increase of her population." Here are some of the reasons quoted by Mr Fyfe as to why J Germany manufactures ao capably j and at such a large profit. "First of all comes the reason that the GerI mans are by nature an industrious and patient race. 'They have,' says Mr Howard very truly, 'been brought up to believe that they must work hard~for the barest subsistence." No country believes more thoroughly than Germany in the Gospel of Work.. Next we have to take into account the fact that the Germans have strongly developed in them both the Sense of Duty and th« Habit of Obedience. These are valuable qualities from the point of view of industrial progress. They are ready to "organise and co-operate for the attainment of & common purpose." They have a- great capacity for what Mr Howard calls "teamwork." Asindivi- I

duals they are willing to efface them- , selves, in the interests of the com- j 'munitjv The "organiserat,of German ] industry can count more confidently j than those of England or America | upon the faithfulness, honesty and hard work of their subordinates. To a great extent this is due to the rigorous class system which still obtains in the Fatherland. A man is horn in a certain social rank; in that rank he is expected (and he expects) to remain. There is not the same feverish anxiety to be genteel (i.e., to wear a black coat and ape the manners of the rich) as there is in England. At the same time, there is a greater dread of sinking into a lower class, and . this acts as a useful spur to keep up to the mark those who might otherwise be lazy and inefficient. Lastly, we find in the Teutonic love of knowledge a powerful cause of the tremendous strides which Germany has made. The Germans really believe in education. They really prefer doing i things scientifically to doing them by | rule of thumb. They offer their young men every inducement to develop their brains. They hold scientists ('men who know') in far greater honour than we do (and also make far more use of them). They let their boys off with one year's military service instead of two if they can pass a certain examination. It is considered shameful for any educated boy to fail to pass. These, then, are the main causes of Germany's rapidly increased prosperity:— Hard work, sense of duty, contentment, dread of disgrace, love of knowledge. "These qualities," adds Mr Fyfe, "would j make any nation prosper—or any individual either. So long as Germany ' possesses them she is bound to go ahead."