Commercial War.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 February 1922, Page 3

Commercial War.

GERMANY AND U.S.A. SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 10. American business men are indignant unent unfair transactions in what is amounting to a commercial war waged between the United States and Germany. These Americans, after listening for months to plaints from Germany about business discrimination by ex-enemy countries, find the German procedure also carries a- venomous stinger for the foreigner. I bus, the American Adding Machine Company, which obtained orders for computing machines and applied for an import license in the regular course, was required by the Federal Commissioner of Exports and Imports to submit the order blanks to prove the genuineness of the order. The company was latei surprised and alarmed w-ien it discovered, according to a complaint received by the American Clmmlier of Comerce in Berlin, that every customer had been circularised, suggesting that he buy, instead of the American, a German computing machine. Import licenses are referred to committees composed of German business men in'; the same line.

A further example of the same spirit is quoted by the “Dye Journal,” the organ of the chemical interests in Germany, which are striving to i-egain their old markets in the United States and elsewhere. It beads a recent issue with a firm demand that the German Government prohibit importing of foreign varnishes, notably those manufactured by American bouses which obtained afoothold in Germany when that country was unable to manufacture varnishes itself, owing to the lack of raw materials, and then eagerly welcomed American representatives, who now find it virtually impossible to obtain import licenses for varnish. On the-other hand, American representatives are having a little quiet almusement at the expense' of South American boycotters of American wares who journey to Germany to buy machinery manufactured for Germany in the United States, such as type-setting machines, as the orders for them, though placed in Germany, have to bo filled from the United States. A number of paper men are now in Britain endeavouring to arrange a reverse operation to fill T.ntin-Ameriean orders placed in New York with German paper.