GERMAN BUSINESS METHODS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9639, 3 November 1909, Page 4

GERMAN BUSINESS METHODS.

The advantages to be derived from a alliance between finance and industry, which were prominently discussed in the London press some months ago, seem to receive testimony from what is happening in South Africa. In the contest for South African trade Germany ha* been Great Britain's most formidable competitor, and in some instances has achieved success when indirect competition with Hritish goods, and without the ai 1 at' any unatural advantages. Mucn of this success is attri;iutitile, authorities declare, to the intimate co operation of the German banking and industrial houses. It enables her engineers tc undertake and execute large contracts without financial embarrassment. En> gliah firms are frequently asked to execute contracts at cost price ant to accept shares in the unde-taki ng as their trade profit, but in Gjrmaoj the contractor receives his payment in cash. The banks take the shares, and issue them to the public as an in vestment whose desirability is backet by the engineering opinion of a grea firm and the directors of the bank. Ai an illustration ot ths advantages oJ this system the history of tho Rant Mines Power Company is cited, Th< bulk of the capital was furnished bj German financial houses, on the im portant condition that a'l the p ant was purchased in Germany. "It is a grave reflection upon the obdurate rigidity of British methods," comments a Transvaal contemporary "that in spite of her vast reserve! of national wealth, her banks appeal to recognise no mutuality of interesl with her commercial houses."