DUMPING AFTER THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 201, 25 September 1916, Page 2

DUMPING AFTER THE WAR.

According to some accounts Germany has stored large quantities 'of merchandise in Switzerland, Holland, and Scandinavia, but especially Switzerland, for export to the countries of the Entente immediately peace is made. The statement has often been contradicted, and it has been uuged that instead of manufacturing raw material for export Germany is hare put to it to get raw material for her own requirements.

■Steel is so short —it is pointed out — that the Germans are using aluminium alloys for war material. Cotton for making explosives was so short that the underclothing of the women of tnc country was being requisitioned. Germany ’s supply of wool was negligible. Copper is more precious than refined gold, and the question remains: What can Germany have manufactured? Obviously only dyes and chemicals. However, that German dumping, no matter when it appears, will be adequately guarded against goes without saying. The trouble is that people have both eyes glued so hard on Germany that they -have no sight to observe other people who are just as dangerous in a commercial sense. It matters little to the colonial manufactuerer whether he is ruined by .a Ger-

man or an American, so long as he is closed up. It is the fact lie s crushed that matters, and not who did it. And unless the people wake up soon,there is danger that we shall find that we have got rid %f a German domination to take on that of the U.S.A.

Against this idea it has been pointed out that during the war the U.S.A. did not dump goods on us. But the people who make that objection forge’s that, the U.S.A. manufacturers could not. They cculd not get the ships. Britain withdrew so many .of her ships _ from commercial pursuits to .ransport troops and munitions that the world’s supply of transport ran short, and the U.S.A. exporters were the cheif sufferers.

On the other hand the whole of the circumstances in the U.S.A. are wording towards the start of a terrific campaign of dumping. The U.S.A. factories of eyery kind have shockingly overproduced. They reckoned on a .luge market in Britain, France, au« Russia, and even Italy, for everything American during the war. Not only were ships monopolised by the trails-

port of munitions, but when the U.S.A. exporters secured ships from neutrals and the Allies. Britain and France prohibited the importation of luxuries and hit most things with a war tariff. Immediately peace is declared over the grave of the executed Hohenzollerns swarms of ships will be let loose. And as the armies of occupaion decrease and fade back into civil ,-ife, the number of ships seeking freight will increase, and the U.S.A. manufacturer will be able to secure all the freight he wishes. And then — Australasia can look out. For that is when the deluge will start, and if a tariff Avail is not built high enough and strong enough the tide will surg-j clean over it.