The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1913. GERMAN TRADE COMPETITION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 42, 18 February 1913, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1913. GERMAN TRADE COMPETITION.

One often hears a good deal of outcry against the competition of Germans with Englishmen in foreign commerce, German houses and German partnerships in English houses forming, a more and more conspicuous feature in the Home trade, while in the East and some parts of South America German houses are also displacing English in fields where not long ago the English had monopoly, remarks the Commercial Record. It is certainly true also that the causes and consequences of these facts, about which there is substantially no doubt, excite a good deal of discussion, which it may be of some use to follow. To a certain extent, the journal referred to considers, the dislike of the phenomenon in certain quarters is founded on the fallacy of protection—that no person is prosperous except at the expense of his neighbours. Because Germans who can do the work hotter accept lower pay and profits than Englishmen in certain occupations, a sort of contempt is expressed for them, and language is used as if a wrong had been done to the English merchant or trader who had been displaced. Certain occupations may, in consequence, no longer yield the profit to Englishmen which they formerly did; but the whole community gains by the cheaper service rendered to it, and the Englishman displaced from this particular occupation need not therefore be idle. It is only one door that is closed, and surely if they have brains and capital at all they may use them in some other way. England being admittedly the host country in the world for skilled labour, whore there is more capital and more opportunity for employing it than elsewhere, it would he very surprising indeed if the skilled labour of adjacent countries,and especially of Germany, where education lias produced an unequalled race of skilled labourers in certain departments, did not overflow into it. This immigration in a national view is a partial set off to the emigration of unskilled or partially skilled labour which is constantly taking place, the net result, the Record Holds, being a constant improvement in the constituents of the English nation at home. The more productive and skilled English labour becomes the more' will wealth accumulate, and the more attractive will England ho for the host skilled labour of other countries. As to the

competition of Gormans abroad in certain departments of foreign trade, there is, perhaps more excuse for dislike, the compensation in a national view for the displacement of the English trades being less manifest. As Germans get. into their hands the network of international commerce there will be a certain disposition to deal with Germany rather than with England, and this will be a disadvantage

to set against any other advantage? which English trade and manufacturers have, though it may reasonably

be doubted if such disadvantage will he a very serious one, the view taken in some quarters cbeing that “English trade will in reality be protected against any division of this nature by the number of German houses in England, and will at the worst be as well represented abroad as German trade.” This may be excellent reasoning, but it is certain to be unpalatable to Britons generally—even in these days ol high commercialism.