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240 carry with them everywhere their home habits, customs, ideas, affinities, etc., dominates every movement they make in foreign countries, and we utterly refuse to consider ourselves other than proprietors of the house where we are only the guests. Such an attitude as this blocks the way at once to successful mercantile movements on our part, and gives rise to prejudice and aversion on the part of the people whose patronage we want." Sir Spencer St. John, the British minister in Mexico, in a recent (1885) report to Lord Rosebury, British Secretary of Foreign Affairs, also says: "In the course of a very long experience I have noted that the average English commercial man of the present day is unfit to compete with the thrifty and industrious German. The former is bent on the pursuit of pleasure, while the latter gives himself no leisure until his future is assured. In fact, the Germans are our most active competitors in every mercantile transaction. There can be no doubt that up to the present time the English commercial community have shown the utmost apathy and indifference to the trade of this country, and have left to the Germans, French, and Spaniards the management of a commerce a fair share of which would fall to them if they would show the same qualities of thrift and industry which have distinguished their competitors."