Another thing that the Germans will have to learn for the welfare of
their much-talked Empire is the value of the lone man. The architects
and builders of the British Empire were all lone men. Might is Right;
but when a young Englishman is set down at an outpost of Empire to
govern a warlike tribe, he has to do a good deal of hard thinking on the
problem of political power and its foundations. He has to trust to
himself, to form his own conclusions, and to choose his own line of
action. He has to try to find out what is in the mind of others. A young
German, inured to skilled slavery, does not shine in such a position.
Man for man, in all that asks for initiative and self-dependence,
Englishmen are the better men, and some Germans know it. There is an old
jest that if you settle an Englishman and a German together in a new
country, at the end of a year you will find the Englishman governor, and
the German his head clerk. A German must know the rules before he can
get to work.

More than three hundred years ago a book was written in England which is
in some ways a very exact counterpart to General von Bernhardi's
notorious treatise. It is called _Tamburlaine_, and, unlike its
successor, is full of poetry and beauty. Our own colonization began with
a great deal of violent work, and much wrong done to others. We suffered
for our misdeeds, and we learned our lesson, in part at least. Why, it
may be asked, should not the Germans begin in the same manner, and by
degrees adapt themselves to the new task? Perhaps they may, but if they
do, they cannot claim the Elizabethans for their model. Of all men on
earth the German is least like the undisciplined, exuberant Elizabethan
adventurer. He is reluctant to go anywhere without a copy of the rules,
a guarantee of support, and a regular pension. His outlook is as prosaic
as General von Bernhardi's or General von der Golt's own, and that is
saying a great deal. In all the German political treatises there is an