CONDITIONS IN EUROPE.
IMPRESSION'S OF A XEW ZEALANDER. GERMANY A MENACE TO CIVILISATION. London, Sept. 2S. Mr. J. C. Cooper, managing director of the Wellington Farmers' Meat Company, who has .been over" here for some time on business, is not very optimistic with regard to the prospects of trade in the near future. "It is impossible to make am- statements as to the future," said Mr. Cooper, in an interview, "and T should not like to say what the state of affairs will be in three months' time. Things change from day to da v. and the artificial conditions brought 'about by control j«ivc one no indication as to the real state of the market. "With regard to wool, there is no doubt that France, Belgium, and fi-er-many want as mncl» wool as thev can get, but with the exchange auainst'these countries as it is to-day, thev cannot afford to buy." v .Mr. Cooper, who has been travelling on the Continent, consider* that l!cfgium will be the lirst country to -el, oyer the effects of the war. 'The llelgians are making wonderful efforts to rehabilitate their trade, though at present they are handicapped by the want of machinery, whii.li was st'olen or destroyed by the Oermans. France, too he thinks, will be very quick to recover. ( "The position in Oermanv" he said "is probably, more serious than people realise. The war indemnity is <r n j„„ to make trade with that country iimpossible for many years. | believe %t for every £1 we net from Cermany in the form of indemnity we shall have to pay £2. While the work of the Gorman nation is mortgaged for years to come, I believe that country will be a menace to civilisation Thev are certainly sending their goods to En's*Bi ftt JtHßffl* «4 uader-outfcin*
prices, but tlmt is only possible while the exchange is what it is to-day. When the. value of the mark rises to 150 to the pound they will no longer be able to compete with other countries. It must be remembered that the people on the Continent do not think of their money as having depreciated, but of England and America's money as having risen in value. A frane is still a franc, and a mark is still a mark, even though it is only equal to a penny in English coinage." "What 1 saw in Ormany,* said llr. Cooper, "convinces me that the people arc only just struggling to live. Another aspect of Oman life that slruek me was the number of men who are suffering from nervous diseases, due to shell-shock, 'and the vast number of illnurtured children with faces like those of old men. "Trade with Russia," added Mr. Cooper, "seems to be entirely out of the question. Their roubles are hardly worth the cost of printing. Indeed, 1 met a man who told me that he had bought 10, uno roubles for £2. Lenin has accomplished what he set out to do in 'Russia—destroy capital—but he realises that until lie has destroyed capital in the rest of the world Russia will be in a hopeless position. Cifjil he is able to say to the worker in 'Eugland, 'You make ploughs and machinery for the Kussiau peasants for nothing, or else you will have no bread to eat,' he lias in no way ncramplishcd his purpose, lie reali: s perfectly that his system is useless unless it is world wide and this is the aim of the Bolshevist, There is certainly no hope for trade with Russia so long as the Soviet Government remains."*
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19201125.2.62
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1920, Page 6
Word count
Tapeke kupu
598CONDITIONS IN EUROPE. Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1920, Page 6
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taranaki Daily News. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.