BRITISH AND GERMAN TRADE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 396, 23 May 1910, Page 3

BRITISH AND GERMAN TRADE

UNMASKING A SHADOW. The most thoirght-prtoivoking article in all the reviews for April is that by Mr. Benjamin Eidd in the Fortnightly, dealing, among other things, with the trade of Great Britain and of Germany. Mr. Kill points out that out of ia total export of domestic produce of some £340,1)00,000 Germany sends to the 550 millions constituting the principal leading nations of civilisation no less than £290,000,000, or 85 per cent, of the whole. As regards !great Britain, out of a total 'c-f some £420,000,000 domestic exports £190,000,000 go to Europe and the United States. In tuese markets Germany is already not only relatively but absolutely ahead of Great Britain, and this by the enormous total of some £100,000,000 yearly. Germany stands, aa the nrat .result of -her creed of thinking in communities, absolutely the first and most effective industrial producer amongst all the nations of the would. '■' Sea power " concludes Mr. Kidd, "is the liast fact which stands 'between Germany and the supreme position in international commerce. At present Germany sen lis only some £50,000,000, or about a' seventh, of her total domestic produce to the markets of the world outside Europe and the United -States, Great Britain, -already worsted in these more competitive markets, sends £240.000,000, .or more than half, of her total domestic .produce to the markets : which lie in oom-pi omental regions „pf the world. We have here all the elements of an international pjitartion of absolutely clasa significance—a'position of the* kind towards which the historian sees afterwards that centuries of history have ■dowry ripened . Does any man who understands the subject think there is any Power in the world, which can prevent Germany, she having thus accomplished the first stage of her work, from closing now with Great Britain for her legitioverseas trade? Here it is that we unmask the shadow which 'looms like a real presence behind all the moves of present-day diplomacy and behind all the colossal armaments that indicate the present preparations for a new struggle for sea power."