GERMAN INDUSTRY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1382, 7 March 1912, Page 5

GERMAN INDUSTRY.

NATIONALISATION OF MONOPOLIES. By Teleenoh - Press Aesoeia'.lon—CJopyrlehi Berlin, March 5. Horr Delbrueck, Minister for the Ii terior, speaking in the Reichstag, stated that foreign industry had grown stronger. Tariffs had not helped Germany against Protectionist countries, but under Freetrade England has put up with anything foreigners think fit to do. Growing private monopolies might become more dangerous than State monopolies. ' Germany," added Horr Delhrueck, "may have gradually to transform private into State monopolies, though the lime is not ripe yet." INCREASED COST OF LIVING. There is a strange irony in tho .fact that German complaints against tho abuses of Protection, remarks the '■Westminster Gazette," have become most clamorous since the time when some Englishmen discovered , the ■merits of the German syMein. The recent decay of British Protection does not, however, mean its rehabilitation here. The high prices of bread, meat, and fodder are the main points of attack, although official statistics show that practically all other fond prices arc rising rapidly. The high prion of fodder is primarily fell by the small German farmers, who raise most cattle, and secondarily by the meat-eating population. "No country in the world has Mich high grain prices as we," says the "Berliner Tagcblall.' It publishes the following comparison of the prices of a ton of wheat on a recent date:— Berlin 211.50 marks, New York 155.80 marks. Liverpool 1GG.20 marks. Paris 200.40 marks. The "Vossiftche Zeitiing" recently published a similar article, in which it says that "the effect of the present privation, which is increasing and increasing, is making itself felt in-hundreds of thousands of families. Bread, vegetables, fruit, potatoes, milk, butter, meat, all are rising in nrice. Many of these rises are already monstrously high. ... It is time, high time, that a Government which is inspired with zeal for 'the defence of national work' should remember tho national worker; that is, tho whole producing population." In another article the "Vossische Zeitiiiiß" CTve figures showing that rye, the chief German bread-stuff, costs, despite the good harvest, 13,8 per cent, more than last summer. The "Morsonpost" also published an article on "The Winter of our Discontent: Dear Living and Bad Business." It paid thai "The present appreciation of prices is not only unpleasant for the individual household, but is absolutely annihilating for the country's business. So much money is being spent on indispensable food-products that money on other needs has to be spared. When the tradesman is having no sales he is giving the manufacturer no order."