"Look here, Captain," he said in a conciliatory tone, "what you say lacks logic.

How could war possibly be acceptable to industrial Germany?
Every moment its business is increasing, every month it conquers a new market and every year its commercial balance soars upward in unheard of proportions.

Sixty years ago, it had to man its boats with Berlin hack drivers arrested by the police.

Now its commercial fleets and war vessels cross all oceans, and there is no port where the German merchant marine does not occupy the greatest part of the docks.

It would only be necessary to continue living in this way, to put yourselves beyond the exigencies of war! Twenty years more of peace, and the Germans would be lords of the world's commerce, conquering England, the former mistress of the seas, in a bloodless struggle.