Far on into the Nineteenth Century, Germany was suffering from the havoc wrought by the Napoleonic wars and still earlier struggles.

Even after the year 1850, the political uncertainties of the time prevented her enjoying the prosperity that then visited England and France.

Therefore, only since 1870 (or rather since 1877-78, when the results of the mad speculation of 1873 began to wear away) has she entered on the normal development of a modern industrial State; and he would be an eager partisan who would put down her prosperity mainly to the credit of the protectionist regime.

In truth, no one can correctly gauge the value of the complex causes--economic, political, educational, scientific and engineering--that make for the prosperity of a vast industrial community.

So closely are they intertwined in the nature of things, that dogmatic arguments laying stress on one of them alone must speedily be seen to be the merest juggling with facts and figures.
As regards the wider influences exerted by Germany's new protective policy, we can here allude only to one; and that will be treated more fully in the chapter dealing with the Partition of Africa.