GERMAN ITEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 January 1926, Page 2

GERMAN ITEMS

LUTHER TO FORM CABINET. ’ -4 [Renter Telegrams.] BERLIN. Jan. 13. Hiudenhm-g lias charged Dr Luther with the task of forming a Cabinet. LUTHER’S PROSPECTS BRIGHT. BERLIN, Jan. 13. Dr Luther’s prospects of forming a Cabinet of the Middle Parties is considered bright, in view of the certainly of his receving the support of the Centre Party and the Democrats Peoples party. His Government is hot e£* peeted to command a majority in tb» , Reichstag. Tt will he dependent cijr the Socialists or the German National Party as the occasion arises. It is universally anticipated that Dr Streseiuann will remain at the Foreign Ministry. The ox-Clinncellor, Dr Marx, is mentioned as taking the portfolio of Justice. GEI? MA NY INDIG NANT. BERLIN, January 14. The news that the Allied army of occupation in the Rhineland still numbers seventy-five thousand lias aroused angry' disappointment in Germany. The newspapers say the fact is a strango commentary upon the Spirit of the Locarno Pact and they hone the Gflvy eminent will give strong expressioll-tm, the indignation of the German people and that an army of such a size makes it evident the promises made at Locarno will not he fulfilled.

GERMAN TRADE DEPRESSIO^-^ LONDON. JnnuaryKTA LONDON, November 23 Thin lids been a black day ill th« Genua it business world, writes the. Berlin correspondent (if a London paper? Yet another important industrial attldl- '• carnation has I’nllcii into serious diHfciL tics and lias been forced to apply (of “ official supervision,” a step equivalent to putting in the Official Receiver. The. concern is the big Richard Kahn Trust, which consists of about a score of up-to-date machine-building firms in Berlin and Southern Germany. The concern states that it has applied for official supervision “in view of the further worsening of the economic situation generally and of the soaveity of credit.”

As in the ease of so many ofli6r' firms, orders have lieen falling away rapidly of late, and increasing difficulty has been experienced in obtaining money for goods delivered. Then the Age Motor-Car Company, at the head of which stands Dr Edmund Stinnes, the eldest son of the late Herr Hugo Stinnes, lias—after a long fight to keep going—finally announced its bankruptcy. .More light, too, fs shed on general conditions in the country by the collapse of the Vogel concern, one of the greatest theatrical amalgamations in Germany. Tt lias theatres in Berlin, Hanover, Halle, Stettin, ami Elherfield.

Unemployment continues to increase, and so does the number of bankruptcies in an alarming fasldon. The result is the severest depression oil th« Stock Exchange. Tt is stated that the average pried of stocks and shares quoted there is now no more than 50 per cent of faco Value.'That depression was increased today liy news of the suicide of Herr Fiilke'nsteln, one of tiie best-known brokers on the ’Change, owing to financial diffirflltics into which his firm had fallen'.