> The label was originally introduced in Britain by the Merchandise Marks Act 1887,[1] to mark foreign produce more obviously, as foreign manufactures had been falsely marking inferior goods with the marks of renowned British manufacturing companies and importing them into the United Kingdom. Most of these were found to be originating from Germany, whose government had introduced a protectionist policy to legally prohibit the import of goods in order to build up domestic industry (Merchandise Marks Act - Oxford University Press).[2]
I like to look at the discussion of wikipedia article. Note that the reference "[2]" is not pointing to oxford university press but rather to a spiegel article.
The actual act can be found here [1].
"With regard to direct false indications of origin the matter is simple enough. If knives are imported marked Sheffield when they have been manufactured in Germany, it will be evident that a fraud has been committed."
"But in the case of indirect indications of origin the matter is not so simple. The use of the English language in descriptive expressions such as "superfine make" on a label applied to goods coming from a foreign-speaking country is undoubtedly, under the ACt a false indication of manufacture"
"In addition to these indications of British manufacture, there are many other wordsused on goods in other languages which might be false or not according to the country from which they are imported. Such words, for instance, as "Mode de Paris,""
In other words, the focus of that act was not things that have been intentionally mislabeled, but rather the junk that people nowadays consider hip combined with the fact that people probably knew even less foreign languages back then than they do now. But anyway I guess it's a matter of opinion whether you take an interpretation of the original text or someones understanding of the understanding of someones thesis.
I don't really know what your point is because I don't understand the language discussion.
In any case, there is no doubt that Germany copied major parts of the industrial revolution from Britain. Or do you think they (we) developed all the same things just a bit later independently, by chance?
The point is that all people copy, in response to a specific comment about China. Yeah... and after reading your comment three more times I still don't understand what point you are trying to make? I think you are trying to say something about the intent of why "Made in Germany" was introduced, but I don't see anything about that in the linked page, just some obscure discussion about language but no larger context. It seems to me the linked page is about some obscure details.
Quote (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Germany):
> The label was originally introduced in Britain by the Merchandise Marks Act 1887,[1] to mark foreign produce more obviously, as foreign manufactures had been falsely marking inferior goods with the marks of renowned British manufacturing companies and importing them into the United Kingdom. Most of these were found to be originating from Germany, whose government had introduced a protectionist policy to legally prohibit the import of goods in order to build up domestic industry (Merchandise Marks Act - Oxford University Press).[2]