GERMAN TRADE OFFENSIVE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2270, 30 April 1921, Page 4

GERMAN TRADE OFFENSIVE

Evidence of German activity in the trade war to capture foreign markets, especially those which Britain had come to regard as her own or had captured as a consequence of the war, multiply on every hand, writes a correspondent in Germany of the Empire Mail. The printing presses are kept nearly as busy turning out catalogues, export journals in English, Spanish, Italian and French, filled with advertisements of enterprising linns, as they are producing unlimited paper marks. A good example of Germany’s energy is furnished by the paper Der Welthandel (The World’s Trade), whose circulars are now Hooding Britain and the Dominions. •“Our industry has not. been destroyed, but works again in the old way,” it .announces with typical Prussian tactlessness to allied nations whose industries have all more or less suffered in the war. The campaigns in England, the .British Dominions, the United Stales, Italy, and South America are being continued vigorously. Japan is the latest country selected for operations. Merchants are urged to push German goods there vigorously, avoiding the use of English in their catalogues, printing them in German, with Japanese translations where possible, “in order to encourage the newly-awaken-ed interest of the Japanese in our speech.” China is also being selected as a ground of operations, particularly for paper and drapery good*. The dye industry has been making great strides, though showing much alarm at the prospect of exclusion from England. Shipping is progressing, and Hamburg claims to have 28 large ocean steamers under construction, most of them over 5,000 tons. Nine of them arc for the German-Australian line. Hamburg, in fact, is rapidly regaining its old shipping prosperity. There can be no doubt of the national determination to re-establish German shipping in its pre-war position.