CONTROL OF GERMAN INDUSTRY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 82, 17 January 1940, Page 4

CONTROL OF GERMAN INDUSTRY

“There is not a single action of a German business man .that is not hampered by a red tap of steelwire < tenacity,” writes Dr. Felix Beyer, a former German economist, in an American trade magazine. Daily he must fight for his raw materials. He cannot hir\ or fire a worker without permission, of the local Government agency, the district labour governor, the Labour Front or the Army. Rearmament and lack of foreign exchange have resulted in a vast bureaucracy, thousands of regulations and bureaucratic manipulations which are an oppressive burden on private business. There are fights of competency between the different authorities. There is a tendency to shift responsibility and complaining firms go whenever possible to the highest authority, which may bo overburdened with work, while the lower authority loses . authority. The control of labour, raw materials and prices is, however, not the end of Government interference. Of late, there lias been introduced also a control of production costs. This control is limited to the execution of Government orders, which, in most heavy industry plants, constitute a majority of all orders.”