COMMERCE IN GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1921, Page 5

COMMERCE IN GERMANY.

.WORKERS GETTING CONTROL. AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Sept. 19, 5.5 p.m. London, Sept. 19. The managing director of Vickers’, after a tour of Europe, says the best informed industrial and commercial leaders in Germany are convinced that she will either make tremendous commercial progress or become Bolshevik commercially, through the workers becoming uncontrollable. The workmen’s councils have already been empowered to independently audit the employers’ books with a view either of increasing wages or reducing prices in order to reduce the cost of living. There is no medium position for Germany; she will either swamp every other country industrially and commercially or become Bolshevik. Other manufacturers did not believe German competition would prove as formidable as expected, pointing out that though the Germans are now booking huge orders at low prices, buyers are finding the quality of the goods of the poorest.—Aus.N.Z. Cable Assn.

Berlin, Sept. 18. Telegrams from Berlin recently de< scribe the German trade boom as fiati, tious, and certain to collapse quickly German manufacturers offering attractive quotations have undoubtedly booked big orders in markets hitherto supplied by British houses, • but the goods senj are very poor. British makers are nov hurriedly dispatching representative overseas with samples to prove that Bii tish goods are superior to anythin! made in Germany*

GERMAN ADVANTAGES. EXCHANGE AND LOW WAGES SHEEP AGAINST RABBIT. London, Sept. 2. The financial editor of th© Times states that the low wages and high ex* change are so much to the advantage ol German manufacturers that they are offering iron and steel goods at les© than half British prices, and are securing most of the foreign and some of the home orders.

Prices in Germany have increased J 6 times since the war began, and wages eight times, consequently the workmen are getting half of the pre-war value or their work. Exchange has also multi-* plied by 16. It costs the English merchant no m'ore than in pre-war times to buy goods from Germany, whereas in. England prices have increased 100 peri cent. It will be necessary to reduce English wages and profits, to improve methods, and to increase the output per wage unit. The civil service salaries cut will save £10,000,000; railway wages are being reduced, this month; police wages in October, and also those of farm hands, dock workers, gas and electricity workers, and builders.

One of the chief obstacles to readjustment is the continuance of high prices. Food retailers by preserving high profits and forming combines and rings, are largely to blame for the trade depression. Milk is retailed at double the price paid to the farmer. Meat is cheaper wholesale, but there is no reduction retail. Bread is being sold at 200 per cent, more profit than before the war.

Public dissatisfaction is growing, adds the writer, and it is inevitable that the growth of trusts must force Parliament to intervene. Obviously, so long aa retail prices are unduly and ridiculously high, labor costs cannot be reduced to the proper economic level demanded by the condition of world trade. The Times, in a leading article, states:’ “Currencies must be anchored again on gold or its equivalent, and before this can be dune budgets must balance. “Instability of currency is s serious hindrance to the resumption of the trade of Europe and also handicaps our trade with countries with a sound and relatively stable currency. “This fact is brought home daily to the British manufacturer and workmen, in competition with Germans, who are submitting tenders at less than half the British figures. “Not only is the German living at a standard half of that before the war, but also a standard distinctly below the British. a producer, the German is highly efficient, thanks to trade activity. He works overtime and. earns more units. “The Britisher is like a sheep vainly, competing with a rabbit for a few shortblades in a drought-stricken pasture. There is no permanent German price, and the advantage of her policy of inflation of the currency is already causing prices to rise. Meanwhile we have no alternative but to force down pricey to establish a parity with Germany.