The same is still more true with regard to other European nations, much more advanced in their industrial development, and especially with regard to Germany. So much has been written about the competition which Germany offers to British trade, even in the British markets, and so much can be learned about it from a mere inspection of the London shops, that I need not enter into lengthy details. Several articles in reviews; the correspondence exchanged on the subject in The Daily Telegraphin August, 1886; numerous consular reports, regularly summed up in the leading newspapers, and still more impressive when consulted in originals; and, finally, political speeches, have familiarised the public opinion of this country with the importance and the powers of German competition.11 Moreover, the forces which German industry borrows from the technical training of her workmen, engineers and numerous scientific men, have been so often discussed by the promoters of technical education in England that the sudden growth of Germany as an industrial power can be denied no more.
Where half a century was required in olden times to develop an industry, a few years are sufficient now. In the year 1864 only 160,000 cwts. of raw cotton were imported into Germany, and only 16,000 cwts. of cotton goods were exported; cotton spinning and weaving were mostly insignificant home industries. Twenty years later the imports of raw cotton were already 3,600,000 cwts., and in another twenty years they rose to 7,400,000 cwts.; while the exports of cottons and yarn, which were valued at £3,600,000 in 1883, and £7,662,000 in 1893, attained £19,000,000 in 1905. A great industry was thus created in less than thirty years, and has been growing since. The necessary technical skill was developed, and at the present time Germany remains tributary to Lancashire for the finest sorts of yarn only. However, it is very probable that even this disadvantage will soon be equalised.12 Very fine spinning mills have lately been erected, and the emancipation from Liverpool, by means of a cotton exchange established at Bremen, is in fair progress.13