CONQUERED BRITISH INDUSTRIES.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1916, Page 4

CONQUERED BRITISH INDUSTRIES.

In many old industries Britain was content to fall bellind and take second place to Germany. This was undeniably true of such great industries as iron and steel, leather, chemicals, glass, brass, zinc, and engineering, to name only a few out of a host of examples. In many new industries, such as the electrical trade and the dye trade, we left it to the Germans to make the running, says Sir I j - Cliiozza Money. Where the Germans used science we used rough-and-ready methods. Perhaps the most telling example of all i? the machinery trade, M-hieh was once our special pride. The first effective industrial machines were invented in Britain, and for many years British engineer? ruled the world, supplying other countries with plant, and doiiig the main engineering work of the entire planet. Of late years, however, British engineers fell behind in inventiveness a? tvell as in the scale of their operations. Jn the new forms of engineering, such as electrical engineering and waterpower work, we allowed ourselves to be beaten from the start, and as a consequence the German production of machinery was, when war broke out, far superior to ours, and her exports of machinery had risen to a value greater than our own. It- need hardly be -said that these things have had a tremendous influence on the course of the war. While her scientific men gave her splendidly organised and equipped industries, with outputs so great that production was reduced to the lowest possible cost, German bankers, with the greatest enterprise, were aiding German captains of industry not only at home, but abroad. While Germany sold to Britain in 1013 some £ SO,00(1,000 worth of goods, Britain sold to Germany only £41,000,000 worth. But that is the least part of the story. AVhen we come to examine German trade in Britain, and British trade in Germany, we see a marked difference between the two things. The German sales were mainly of wholly manufactured articles, whereas Germany's purchases mainly consisted of raw materials or partly finished articles. The magnitude of the German trade victory in Europe is the magnitude also of the enormous loss (hat Germany has suffered in this war. Gone for her. for this generation at least, if not for the next, is the magnificent, market of the United Kingdom, which stood freely open to her before the war. Gone, also, are the markets of Belgium, France, Russia, and Italy, to say nothing of her loss in other countries arising from the disgust and horror which she has excited in the neutral nations. From her central position in Europe, Germany utilised her economic advantages, and won an unparalleled European commerce. From the heart of Europe have poured the German hordes which have carried fire and sword to be the destruction not only of her neighbours, but of her own economic power. ;