The Taihape Daily Times THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1915. AFTERWAR MARITIME TRADE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 30 December 1915, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1915. AFTERWAR MARITIME TRADE.

AND WAIMAEINO ADVOC \TE (With- which is incorporated The Taibape Post and Waimarino News.)

The -wail of Hen* Ballin, who is the greatest of all German shipmasters, concerning the future of Germanjy’s maritime trade is very significant just now, when after-war arrangements are being freely discussed in the high places in Great Britain and elsewhere. The problems confronting our Empire are full of complexity, and it is particularly interesting to note that Mr. Asquith has consented to a debate in the House of Commons on a motion proposed by a member, who is a world-wide authority on economics, Mr. Hewins, for the institution of an Imperial Conference to discuss the future fiscal protection of the Empire. Herr Ballin, head of the great Hamburg-Amerika shipping firm has, in a Christmas greeting published in the Vossiche Zeitung, given some indication of the difficulty of the problems which Germany , has to unravel. He is chiefly solicitous for the conditions which are to prevail when the sound of cannon has ceased. It will be remembered that it was Germany who with a frigid peremptoriness rejected Mr. Winston Churchill’s, proposal for international cessation of war-ship building. Now it is Germany’s leading shipmaster that is talking of the necessity of terminating the armament fever simultaneously with the war, and of preventing bloodspilling from being followed by an economic war. Surely the prospects of Germany’s maritime trade have undergone some rude changes; it must be s o when such a volte face of German policy is advocated. Herr B'allin’s talk is an indication that Germany now knows that she hag lost all hope of being able to control the sea as a result of the war; it is evidence that Germany’s only hope of a partial re-establishment of pre-war privileges is only possible by setting up a ferment in neutral nations, and minimising to some extent the awful disaster that has overtaken her shipping trade. The Germany that would have no talk about putting the brake on warship building now wants armaments to f cease when the war ceases. Germany hag tentatively proclaimed through Herr Ballin, her realisation of the fact that warship building will he a lost industry, that she will not be able to longer force on the world a race in armaments, and also that she Will be so crippled that she will be able\ to take no part in an economic war with i the victors. All this is satisfactory

from Britain’s point of view, and the fact that one of the Empire’s leading economists sees in the present an opportune time for the Institution of an Imperial Conference to deal with the subject, helps to strengthen the indication Herr B'allin has given of Germany’s realisation of helplessness. Economic war will be no new thing, however, should anything of the nature come about; it existed before the war and Germany wa s the aggressor. Freedom of the seas that Herr Ballin wants after war was never mentioned by Germany before the war, when tax upon tax was levied to nullify Britain’s supremacy, and when the seas were as free to her as they "were to any other nation, Britain included. What Germany then wanted, and what she now knows she cannot have, was supreme command of the seas, and she did not scruple to sacrifice millions of lives and precipitate the most awful world catastrophe in the endeavour to achieve her desires. The pre-war economic struggle instituted by Germany will be continued after the war in a modified form, with Germany largely eliminated, and it is consoling and encouraging to us to know how perturbed Herr Ballin and his confreres are over the self-imposed disaster that has 1 overtaken Germany’s maritime trade. If the time is ripe for a* conference such as Mr. Hewins asks for, it is a strong indication of Germany's increasing impotence. While Britain is discussing a conference to arrange a basis for the Empire’s future maritime interests, Herr Ballin, who undoubtedly speaks for Germany, throws out a suggestion to neutrals that armaments should cease with the end of war, and that the seas should be free to all nations. He thoroughly understands and knows the sweeping disaster that has fallen upon Germany’s maritime trade, a sweeping that has left no trace of it on any waters. As a similar realisation dawns upon the people of his country the already strong cry for peace must become more accentuated. Herr Ballin’s remarks are an inspiration which will not be lost on Britain’s economists; and they are an encouragement to all parts of our Empire inasmuch ag they are an admission of lost, power and prestige.