The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1920. GERMANY’S WONDERFUL RECUPERATION.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3587, 24 September 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1920. GERMANY’S WONDERFUL RECUPERATION.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Wahnarino News’* g.~a..

The recently disorganised and demoralised German Government and people are displaying a rccuperativeness that is truly cause for marvel. Primary industries are well-advanc-ed toward a state that is commencing to bear comparison with some aspec.s of their pre-war excellence,-and reconstruction of secondary industries is proceeding with surprising rapidity. Now, late cablegrams convey the fact that German shipping is again on the Atlantic, and there is probability of it-he mammoth ocean liners for which German Shipping Companies were deservedly noted np to 1914, soon appearing in Australian and eastern Pacific ports. What is most important for Britishers to seriously note is the example set to Government and people of what earnestness and energy can so speedily accomplish in a war devastated population and country. The German people realised from the beginning that reconstruction was impossible so long as they had to depend upon what a BritishAmerican shipping ring was pleased to allow them. Recently German interests in the old Hamburg-Amcrican line .were resurrected and revived, and in conjunction with the American Ship and Commerce Company, the Gorman merchant flag is once more flying on the seas with all the freedom of antiwar days. Quickly following upon

the successful launching of their first * shipping project, the Germans have arranged for the linking up of the old German-Lloyd with the United States Mail Steamship Company, and all those Atlantic ports Germany traded

with before 1914 arc to be the places of call in the resumed trading and passenger relationship between principal German ports and those of New York, Boston and Baltimore. Germany i s virtually proclaiming to 'ho world the knowledge that, any effort at reconstruction of industry find society would be futile unless speedy resumption of shipping was amongst the very first movements to fyo. prd.seciCed on a large scale. We hear the

proclamation, see the flag of German commerce flying over old-time sea routes, and note the presence of mammoth German liners in principal American pofts, and yet it does not occur to New Zealanders that they can only receive and send away from their seagirt shores just what shipping combines consider ir profitable and convenient to handle for them. New Zealanders rave about shortages of articles of almost every known indus-

trial character, and they would probably insist upon more business-like and statesman-like management of their affairs could they see, in Germany, the crops taken in the harves

now just about finished; see the huge factories working day and night towards undoing the loss resulting from production of the sword the ploughshare; see the raw material to feed their factories pouring in from South America, the United States, and from neighbouring countries; see shipload after shipload of German made goods in a. veritable outpour of heavily laden vessels going to Britain, and to other profitable dumping grounds for German-made goods; once again see the palatial liners crossing and re-crossing the Atlantic, carrying the German merchant flag and engaged in a highly profitable passenger and freight traffic with Now York and Boston, while New Zealand producers cannot obtain ships to take away ) heir wool and mutton. For what did New Zealand help to win the war?

Was it to see their products rotting in store, the ships of Entente nations I being too busy in relieving shortages in Germany and disregarding equally i serious and severe shortages in Now | Zealand? Was it that irhey might get from nineponce to a shilling a pound for their wool from British trusts who sell it in a manufactured form at two or three shillings an ounce, monopolising the shipping that should be used to enable shortages being attended to in New Zealand, Britain, America, all Allied nations, even France, admit that Germany cannot do without shipping, and they are providing the shipping that Germany needs. Germany Is not a water-lock-ed country, supplies could be poured in by rail from all Europe and Asia, and yet New Zealanders will not understand that shipping is a thousand times' more necessary to them than to the German people. Of course, only that shipping which the shipping * ring is pleased to allow can come to | this country. No one will begrudge j the German people the kind attention | that the various combines and trusts i are bestowing upon them while rates j of exchange are approximately what they are Iro-day. German people not unmindful of the thousand per cent kind American and British combines and 'trusts are levying from them while in their temporary helplessness to prevent it, and in that respect the temper and astuteness they are displaying while struggling from under the yoke of defeat is indeed admirable. They have the great joy and satisfaction of knowing that their ships* are once again flying the German merchant ensign over the oceans, and they have a pleasing vision of their trading ramification' extending to wherever trade is worth while, and this indicates the advance made under defeat. New Zealanders should be doing very much better in recovering from their victory. When critically examined the professed reconstruction of industry and society in New Zealand is not there in fact. New Zealand producers are told that a wave of prosperity is passing over the country, but the most powerful economic microscope discovers no prosperity from a national viewpoint. It does bring to view a huge accumulation of credit which is largely under the control of,the money-grab-bing class*, and it is seen to be rapidly flying as though drawn by a powerful magnet, into the control of a still smaller coterie, of capitalists. No sane economist could say that New . Zealand wag prosperous; that the country was becoming better able to purchase its* needs. The,craft of combines makes it impossible for producers to obtain that upon which they could profitably spend their money, and, meanwhile, there is set up sys- , temg of gambles and taxation that could tolerably well be justly designated pocket-picking. To say that the Government is prosperous is quite correct, for it is wallowing in a scheme for abstracting from producers and people the money they have hardly earned. The Increased cost of running the national business has been immensely greater than * be increase of income from the sale of the national commodities. There are people who can be cajoled into believing that a farm worth £2O an acre if sold for £IOO an acre the transaction increases the wealth of the country, while the Butter Committee now sitting, is having it pyoved to them that the country is poorer by such sales. The present Government knows that it is no use doubling the production of the country, a process which alone can furnish the money j now necessary to save the people from calamity, because the shipping ring has virtually informed it that ships are too busy exploiting Europe to take away the produce tlup is al- 1 ready deteriorating while lying in store. If the German people now find German ships are essential for recov. j ery from defeat, people in New Zea- ■ land will eventually realise that New , Zealand-owned ships are equally es- i sential if they would recover from the i effects of victory. The great war end- ; ed in complete victory for rings, com- . bines and trusts, but not for the masses of the people, they only furn- J ish the field for trusts to exploit; it ; was no more victory for them than

for Germany, at least time is the growing aspect of industry in this country. if it is not what can be observed in shipping and finance. ’