HUN COMPANIES MUST GO.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 227, 17 November 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

HUN COMPANIES MUST GO.

400 CONCERNS THAT ARE TAKING BRITISH MONEY.

For two years, says the Daily Mai:, the Government has been protecting Hnn companies registered in Great Britain. Not only has the Government been protecting such companies, but also it has been doing business with them. And the profits of this trading, so far as legislation Tilis gone up to°the present, 'have been accruing to Germans and iwitl presumably Ik? paid to them after the war. A letter written by the Board ni Trade to a purely Hun company says n effect:

There is nothing to prohibit your company from getting payment for goods sold by it or from going on selling goods provided the goods sole, are not from an enemy country or sold to an enemy.

In a letter to a British company who asked whether they should pay nianey to this Hun company for goods received, and whether it would be light to go on trading with them, the Boaia of Trade replied:

You will be quite right in trading with them. WE DO BUSINESS AVITH THEM

The Hun company referred to was tne Continental Tyre Company, which has just been declared by the House Ji Lords to be an enemy firm. On Government advice of this kind millions of pounds of British money have found 1 their way into Hun pockets or into coffers where it will lie untouched and safe till the day when tin Huns receive it from their agents her?. Gorman bills to the extent of £50,000,000 were collected by British banks from British traders after the outbreak of war. German firms are still trading in our midst and collecting their debts —and profits. Four hundred Hun concerns are still alive in Great Britain earning profits for Huns, and it is asked to what extent can these firms be exterminated by the recent decision of the House ot Lords (in the c.ase of Continental Tyre Company v. Daimler Motor Company) that it 'is illegal to trade with or to pay moneys to Hun companies even if they are registered in Great Britain ? I.,egal opinion on the ipoint is .'.t present contradictory. But it seems ■agreed that the judgment is not in itself sufficient to ensure the extinction of Hun trading concerns in our midst. It affects only the right of Hun companies to rocever debts NOW —i.e. during the war —and gives no clear definition of a Hun compnm. Nor docs cover Hun companies 'to whom the Government has given protection '.n the form of a licence to trade. The Government still protects Hun companies by withholding their names and, as the House of Lords implied, the ordinary trader cannot be expected to detect a company's Hunnishness without guidance from the Government, for they hide m.der names containing such adjectives as "British" and make patriotic displays on their notepaper. There is a great and growing demand that the Government should end all Hun firms not vital to the nation.