TRADE RESTRICTIONS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 157, 22 March 1918, Page 5

TRADE RESTRICTIONS

■WHAT GERMANS THINK,

■The Minister of Customs (the Hon.A. M, Myers) has made available the following translation of a German document circulated oy German agents , among Germans, in Philadelphia, U.S.A.:-

You: are doubtless acquainted with the law that has just been passed in France, with a . great flourish, by which long terms of imprisonment are threatened to traders who execute orders for tho benefit of enterprises established in neutral territory and belonging to Germans, even when such orders concern America and are destined solely to augment domestic trade. If is superfluous to emphasise the insensate character iof this law aud to remark that France to feed herself and maintain, her strength has thought proper, to cut off her o*n flesh. TVo propose solely to call your attention to the procedure that may bo followed with a view to allowing our nationals to adapt, their interests to the situation thus created.

It is necessary for-a German enterprise which desires to complete a transaction to get into communication v.'ith : a neutral house of business which will j order the goods in France, and will; naturally take care not to mention the \ name of the German subjects interest- ( ed in the matter. Care will be taken i that the parcel , bears.no exterior mark, , to betray their participation in the | transaction. It is still more indispons-: • able to keep carefully and entirely; hidden the 1 very existence of the Ger-: man house from which the order actu-j ally comes, seeing that the French pur- ; veyor has no right to fill the order unless he has every reason to believe thatj, the final destination of the goods is the j neutral house; if this purveyor is jus-; tilled in fearing that the French au-i thorities' may afterwards accuse and.: convict him of haying participated in' tho establishment" of the combination; he will of course refuse to run the| formidable risk;which; ; under this head [ alone the- transaction 'would entail on j him. For reasons' of'tho same nature '. tho neutral house by whose intervention; tho business is concluded must take; care to effect delivery when the time, is ripe in its own name. . Tho essential point, in order to pre-, vent any difficulty, is to keep it un-, known in France that the final destination of tho goods is with a German: enterprise.On tho other side, with a view to; avoiding the vexatious hesitations and! delays that might arise out <;f con-' siderations in regard to credit, it is; recommended to indicate at first sight references in Franco to the purveyor who receives tho order, or better still, to let him have at the same time as tho order the approximate amount of the purchase money and expenses, unless of course the intermediary in whose name the contract is passed is already known to this purvoyor. And, in concluding, we must insist on this capital point: It will be for the future, and.even when peace has been made, the patriotic duty of every German to do no business except through merchants of German origin at Marseilles, Havre, and in general all French ports.—Respectfully yours, ' Section of German Economic Initial tivo (signature illegible).