WHAT HAS GERMANY LOST?

Matamata Record, Volume II, Issue 65, 17 January 1918, Page 4

WHAT HAS GERMANY LOST?

The Passing of German

Industry.

(Continued)

■; Textiles and steel are the backbone of modern economic life. Germany’s textile industry was probably the most highly developed in the world. It proved its efficiency during those years when it successfully competed in the American market over our prohibitive textile tariff. Germany’s dress goods, woollens, cotton stuffs, embroideries, laces and mixed goods were carried in her argosies all over the world, bringing in rich annual returns to the Vaterland. They made the keenest kind of keen competition for the mills of Great Britain and of this country. To-day, however, tho artificial silk industry is dead; the dress-goods mills are stagnant, with plainest patterns ; the wooden manufacture is dying; the machine lace and embroidery factories have lost their grip and inspiration; and the important sister industry of dyeing and finishing is losing its cunning through disuse. Tho sorry condition of the textile, industry is one of the things that is giving the Gorman warriors pause. German mills consumed regularly enormous quantities of cotton and wool, and shortages in these two materials were among the earliest war pinches felt. It is true that Germany was able to import a large amount of cotton in 1915, and that she captured other quantities upon the fall of Antwerp and Lille. These stores, nevertheless, were unimportant when compared with the demand. Tho Germans early understood the necessity for the discovery of some makeshift. They turned to the fibre of the nettle and to paper. Claviez, a manufacturer in my district, was allowed five million marks by the government at the beginning of the wav to save him from bankruptcy. His mills turned out a paper fabric that was used in the manufacture of sacking and rugs. The government directed him to begin the manufacture of paper dress goods; and, as the war went on, the German poor donned paper suits, paper shirts, paper waists and paper skirts'. They were, also, papiermache shoes and paper hats ! This widespread consumption of paper garments made up part of the index of the great war loss to the textile mills. It meant idle machines by thousands; the deterioration of hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of machinery that was not replaced. It meant a vital weakening of Gorman industry. It was one of the striking features of the gradual sapping of the strength of industry, a gradual unfitting of it for competition in the world market in the days of peace to come. Tho mills gave up the manufacture of their rich patterns and of their novelty patterns. The style books of the German mills have remained practically the same since the outbreak of the war, with the immeasurable loss to the industry of the old tense drive of the mills’ organization that caused the working out of new style books, from cover to cover, for each succeeding season. STARTLING GERMAN MAKESHIFTS. From the effects of this slackening up it will take many years to recover. Just the plaiuest patterns, in the most simple and cheapest weaves, are now turn out in Germany, for the dire needs of the war have put this industry a generation behind the times, and have further weakened it in capital, skilled labor and equipment. It is a groundless fear to-day—the German textile industry! In passing it is worth noting other German expedients for doing without things. The absorbent cotton used for the dressing of wounds has been replaced by a preparation from spruce wood pulp. The wood is imported from Sweden. And. the finished product is said to be more advantageous for the dressing of wounds than is cotton. It is lighter and more fluffy, and is easier to change. From a similar cellulose baso tho Germans get a cloth for the binding of the dressings and for the manufacture of piece goods. Then there is synthetic rubber, which is used chiefly for tyres. It has some of the characteristics of rubber, with the exceptions of resiliency and elasticity. But probably the most startling of the German makeshifts was the bacteria-bred fat, which has been put on the market by an enterprising brewing firm. Food substitutes are innumerable : but all of them are sad, unsatisfactory gruesome imitations of the real thing. The steel industry has become a thoroughgoing war industry, one feature of which is the continued manufacture of imperatively needed staples. This industry has been so terribly pushed by tho primary demands of the gigantic war business of Central Europe and Turkey that it has not been found possible to produce sufficient rails and rolling stock for the railroads, important as these battle nerves of Germany are in her efficient game of war. The Krupp people have established branch furnaces and forges in all parts of the country, likely with the idea of minimising enemy opportunity for crippling the shell and cannon production. Furnaces have been operated for the Krupp Works in Franco, Belgium and Asia Minor. Asia Minor

is being developed into a metal treasure trove for Germany, and many millions of marks havo been and avo being expended in the building up of mining properties there. There is no longer a scarcity of metals in Germany. Copper is plentiful. Nickel mines in Anatolia were in the first stages of development when I left Germany; but in a year or two they will yield considerable outputs. Serbia, Rumania and Anatolia are now furnishing large supplies of copper. Before the conquest of Serbia the metal outlook for the Germans was dark and dreary. They stripped the roofs of the large buildings and factories of their copper and conducted a painful house to houso survey of the copper and nickel stores of the empire. Ornaments, kitchen utensils, heirlooms, statues and bells all went into the munition melting pots; and tho kitchen ware, at least, was replaced by coarse pottery. This saved many of the porcelain people from going to the wall. WAR MONOPOLISES ALL INDUSTRY. The difficulty in the munition industry is not want of material, but want of labor. All available labor has been drawn into this industry, and there is a hungry cry, steadily growing in volume, for more, ever more hands. The whole metal industry of Germany is concentrated on war, on the output of shells, bullets, armor plate, cannon, submarine parts; and the tempo is a frantic one. Every other business interest of the empire is subservient to the demands of this industry. It is maintaining an atmosphere of hopeless hectic rush, and its activity and prosperity are surely ruining the country. The building trades are dead. There is practically no new construction throughout the empire; and even'repairs are preforce postponed on account of lack of labor and lack of capital. The Germany of yesterday has grown very dingy and dilapidated. It will take hundreds of millions of marks to bring it into repair again. Public buildings, private bouses, streets, public parks aud the peacetime factories are all running to decay. I have sometimes wondered on my wartime journeys through Germany whether the heartless devastations of France have wrought a greater loss to the Sunny Republic than those German losses that have resulted from internal weakness and from neglect. The manufacture of woodworking machinery for the work of peacetime is being neglected; and so a whole industry is falling into decay. The manufacture of an innumerable list of machine tools is being slighted ; and thus other industries are gradually going by the hoard. The manufacture of rails and railroad equipment is below requirements ; and so the magnificent net of German railroads is going into a state of inefficient ill repair. The fabrication of shrapnel has replaced- the manufacture of lace and machines and looms. The fabrication of submarine parts has replaced the manufacture of locomotives, typewriters and sewing machines- The fabrication of shells and cannon has cut down the manufacture of agricultural implements. All the strength of factory and forge is being sucked into the never-satisfied munitions business, the tentacles of which, furthermore, are continually drawiug away the liveblood of many other industries. All these industries must be slowly and painfully reorganized, when peace comes, before the Germau will again be in a position to sally forth and fight for the trade of the world. Will ho have sufficient energy left for this stupendous and saddening undertaking ? Sometimes, on my trips through his topsy-turvy ..war world, I have very much doubted that tho German of to-morrow will have sufficient stubborn courage to begin the old life anew.