CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 281, 6 May 1915, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

AN IXTEKKSTIN'G BEPORT. Consular reports are seldom interesting to the casual reader, but occasionally there is an illuminating paragraph to be found among the surveys of trade conditions and the pages of arid statistics. Eccently there reached Wellington a copy of a document that was laid before the House of Commons a few months ago. It is a "Report for tlio Voar 1913 on the Trade of Germany, edited at the Voreign Office and the Board of Trade." The report was written before the outbreak of war, but it contains the following passage:— More particularly from the second half of 1013 onwards the necessity of a larger fierman export seemed uppermost in the public mind; the whole Press suddenly overflowed with artie'es on Germany's economic mission abroad, on what is called flermany's Wcltwirtsckaft. Again and again it was pointed out that among the three, leading industrial countries of the world Germany found herself by a long way in the least favorable position. The. United Kingdom had her vast colonial Empire as a natural national market; the United, States had a whole continent, while (lennany, as the last-comer, had no such privileged territories. As her colonies could, at best, he regarded as future sources, of supply for various Uw '.■ material*, she must regard the world as her trading empire and rely exclusively upon her energies and enterprise to conquer it.

The well-disciplined newspapers of Germany do not enter upon campaigns of this kind without official sanction and encouragement. The same report quotes in a later paragraph a sentence from a document issued by the German Statistical Office:

Upon an agricultural area which has in size remained practically unchanged, German agriculture has endeavored" to s«|>l>l.v a population increasing in number and wealth in accordance with the increased demand, with the result that food is imported in increasing quantities for the upkeep of the population. The accompanying tables show that Germany imported more than .£38,000.000 worth of corn and cereals in 1!)I2, in addition to huge quantities of other foodstuffs.

MrxmoNs ov mu;. Owners of ongincerins works nf all kinds are keenly—nav, vitally-interest-ed m the new Act of Parliament, which pives the Government power to take over any works or factories that mi-dit he consiilered suitable for the manufacture of munitions of war (savs a Lonilon paper). The position is. indeed strange and unprecedented. Y 0 'fac-tory-owner knows lint that to-morrow he. may he peremptorily ordered to cease Ins present manufacture, to obtain new plant and to commence the production ot article* of a kind totally different from, tlioso winch form the normal output o the factory. Already this has actually happened in the case' of certain motor factories, but in the majority of these instances the alteration in' the i 1 1*!"' of t!u> n »t|'»t wis made early m the war and not infrequently at the J liroct request of the firms concerned. J»" latter anticipated that the war woald result in a «reat slum,, in (he demand for private motor-cars, ami herefore urped upon the Government then; ability to manufacture certain esW'nfial portions of sl,ells and other parts leeiim;; jrrcat precision in manufacture "<* «« that which normally obtain,,' n;otor factory. wh,,-e the mechani " «oik to finer bmits than is the ease in ,v other branch of the oiifdnocrim, ,-,,. ''"* '•>'. Many (inns were given ",;,, * : ;ti.i ;t i r ,^£ ; i,,h ! s '" *'• »'ter thei,- output o„lv nf 1i 1t),7 '"':': h "' in ." I'favy instead »f hp-hf, motors. Under the new ; JUV it «s couv.Mvable (.hat, ,',„. ( . xam , ,„ "'"tors might he ordered by th, fioVer ».cif. to be made, let us say ~[ n wo,! 'io.-n.ally <W<<l in the production of motor-cycle engines. Tn general it may bo assumed that the changes in tl e „£

ture of the. output will be Blade, aa far as possible,, to harmonise with what bus i-bran done at the works before, so that tlii! experience of the workmen in handling certain machines and materials may be utilised to the best extent. Thus we should not expect to find ride parts being made in the works devoted to boiler construction, though it would not come as a surprise to learn that at the latter mines were in course of manufacture. With regard to the production of ammunition for rides and guns, this interests the engineering wdrks proprietor to the extent of the metal cases, bullets and projectiles for such ammunition, the manufacture of the necessary explosives coining primarily within the purview of chemical firms, many of whom could change the nature of their output without groat diflieiilty In the Birmingham metrtl trade there are plenty of llnnn pprfeotly familiar with the working of sheet I)rass, who, if they were able to obtain the necessary machinery, could soon set their men to work' on the manufacture of cartridge and shell cases, as well as of nickel-cased bullets. To extemporise in the. matter of production of shells would not be so easy a matter, and probably the solution of this problem lies in the continuous expansion of existing works, though many entirely new enterprises in this direction are rapidly maturing.