GERMAN COMMERCE.

Waikato Argus, Volume II, Issue 109, 20 March 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

GERMAN COMMERCE.

Si'EAKixu on the subject of foreign competition in the Carpenters' Hall, at the distribution of prizes to students of the City and Guilds of London Institute, at which the Lord Mayor presided, the Lord Chancellor said the chief thing for British workmen to do was to make their work thorough and real. He remembered, some years ,120, hearing a strong denunciation in the House of Commons of the methods of sonic manufacturers of British fabrics, and he was afraid analogous practices were not yet extinct. Quito recently he had read that sugar was occasionally weighted with ground paving-stones, and that some clever people were making sweetmeats out of paraffin oil. It would be found much easier to lose a commercial character than to regain it, and he was afraid if it was lost the trade would be lost with it. Foreign governments took the initiative in the training of their people to do good work, and the result was every year becoming more apparant. As a judge, he was struck with the enormous number of chemical patents which came from Germany. These discoveries have, been made in England quite as well as 111 Germany, bn*i they were not, and Sir Philip Magnus and the two gentlemen who accompanied him to Germany told the people of this country, in a Bluebook recently issued, that the Germans were constantly going ahead in developing new processes and methods. New factories were being built, and, in short, Englishmen must bestir themselves in the matter of training and education if they were to maintain themselves on a level with their Continental competitors. They must suit the wants, and even the fancies', of their customers, instead of placing themselves on a pinnacle of excellence and telling their customers — this is the best thing for you, and it is the way we will continue to make it for you. Foreign manufacturers, instead of adopting that attitude, set themselves to find out exactly what people wanted, and they tried to suit them. That method, at all events, has good sense to recommend it, and it seemed, moreover, to be the one that was most likely to get the trade.