GERMAN INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 11, 12 January 1918, Page 11

GERMAN INDUSTRY.

SADLY SMITTEN BY WAR. THE PASSING OF MARVELLOUS LNDUiSTRIES. The story of the decay of German industry has never been told (writes Air. A. Curtis Roth, former United States Vice-Consul, Plauen, Saxony, in the "Saturday Evening Post," New York). To mc this has seemed one of the most important phases of the war, in respect to its bearing both upon the war itself and upon the future reorganisation of trade when the world is again at peace. It is the story of a mighty failure, the epic of the downfall of the giants. It is the story of clever makeshifts, of strange expedients, of dogged perseverance, of the energy of despair, and of a thousand-and-one ingenious inventions. But it is unmistakably the story of the passing of German industry, one of tho most marvellous industries in the history of man's economic effort. War has narcotised German industry, in some eases drugging it into a fatal Bleep. If the barriers of the Entente blockade were removed to-morrow there would be a steady flow of cheap imports into Central Europe, and but the merest trickle of exports in return. Stories of a war-bound industry, working day and night against the time when peace shall be declared in the ivord again, are pure inventions of vain j imaginings. Despite courageous makeshifts, the German industries are losing their grip. The people, it seemed to mc, felt this more strongly than their leaders; and herein they found an added terror and an added disillusionment. NO POST-WAR DELUGE. The effects of this industrial failure will be felt long after the war. Germany's ability to compete in the world market has been shaken to its foundations. The cold dawn of such a fear animates the German cry for peace. Only a shell exists of the powerful aggressive commercial giant of yesterday. It is folly to imagine an inundation of cheap German goods following the war. Great changes have been wrought in the • superbly efficient industrial Empire during the past two years —change so great that I, an observer on the spot, could follow their progress month by month. Impoverished, disorganised! disheartened, the Germany of the coming time of peace will be in no condition to overwhelm foreign markets with its w ares. It will need to call upon all its Pluck, all its efficiency, all its skill in organisation barely to hold its own. Many vague stories have come out of Berlin concerning the Empire's preparations for unloosing a great commercial drive with the coming of peace. These •tories were inspired with the purpose

of discounting the British blockade in the eyes of the neutrals. Tlie Germans were said to be storing vast quantities of manufactured goods which, at the conclusion of a victorious peace, were to be used in a price-cutting campaign for the regaining of Germany's lost markets. It was an alluring notice to Germany's former customers, and a helpless blustering threat to the new war growth of Germany's competitors. The sale of these goods was to restore Germany, at a jump, to all the prestige o£ her old position as a trader. These stories were a figment in the German psychological campaign. BJSGAIKTSG LOST POSITION. It will take Germany many years of peaceful effoi* to win back her old position; and, with the war lasting on, it is highly doubtful whether she will ever regain that which she has lost. Business has dwindled and dwindled. The famous industry that formerly supplied a large part of the world's demand is now almost solely employed in catering for war, and its peace-time organisation has been disrupted past recognition. In ' short, the peace-time industries have i wasted away. When the' British "Fleet, in a day, swept German goods from all tho seas, the first deep note in the mighty symphony of the anguished passing of a people's dreams was sounded. This blow temporarily Btaggered the whole j German industrial system, and from this blow some of the German industries have never recovered. Then came the failure of important raw materials. Other factories closed their doors, and the plans and sacrifices of a generation went for naught. There was next manifested a shortage of labour, with which a terrible wastage of skilled labour on the battle fronts went hand in hand. This loss of skilled labour is an item in the German industrial account that future generations of Germans must pay, and pay again. Finally there was •undertaken a. thorough reorganisation of Germany's industry for tho business of war; and when this reorganisation ■was completed the competitor of peacetime had staked his full investment upon the conquest of enemy territory and the destruction of enemy trade. THE HAMMER. OF THOR. The British blockade and the labour disturbance fell like a blow from the hammer of Thor upon the German industrial world. Hundreds of thousands of skilled operatives marched away, and many factories closed their doors on account of lack of labour. True, training schools for the wives and sisters of the mobilised workmen were opened all over the Empire. That work has. gone forward without rest, until to-day a race of women labourers and mechanicsfrowsy roughened Amazons—peoples Central Europe. . The labour ehortage, however, grows and grows.

And, with the closing of the sea lanes, many flourishing firms among those almost entirely dependent upon their export business for the incomes went into bankruptcy. Government subsidies tided other firms over the first period of stress. Thus Claviez, known in the trade of the world as the manufacturer of the fine wood-pulp fabrics, was saved by Government intervention. The wheels of Saxon industry almost ceased to turn, for this German State manufactures wares chiefly for foreign (markets. It sent its fancy dress goods )to France, England and America. It sent its staple weaves to Russia and to | the Orient. It sold its fancy porcelains I to England and the Americans. It sold its cheap cottons to India, China, and South America. It distributed its ma- ' chine-made laces and embroideries throughout the world, sending about | four-fifths of these products abroad. Likewise it sold the greater part of its leather goods and notions abroad. In plain American parlance, every country of the world was Saxony's meal ticket, except the home country. The appearance of the English fleet in the ranks of the enemy threw this rich industry into a chaos of confusion. A NATION WITHOUT SUPPORTS. " We are a decade behind the styles in everything except war machinery," was the suDJect of a plaintive discourse to mc by Kommerzienrat Wolff, of Zwickau, shortly before I left Germany. The" Herr Kommerzienrat was frank; but, then, the Herr Kommerzienrat is one of the few prominent Germans who have been opposed to war all along. Kommerzienrat Wolff, in the days of Germany's prosperity, sold safety lamps in every part of the globe. Textiles and steel are the backbone of modern economic life. Germany's textile industry was probably the most highly developed in the world. It proved its efficiency during those years when it successfully competed in the American market over our prohibitive textile tariff. Germany's dress goods, woollens, cotton stuffs, embroideries, laces and mixed goods were carried in her argosies all over the world, bringing in rinh annual returns to the Vaterland. They made the keenest kind of keen competition for the mills of Great Britain and of this country. To-day, however, the artificial silk industry is dead; the dress-goods mills are stagnant with plainest patterns; the woollen manufacture is dying; the machine lace and embroidery factories have lost their grip and inspiration; and the important sister industry of dyeing and finishing is losing its cunning through disuse. This sorry condition of the textile industry is one of the things that is giving the German warriors pause. STARTLING GERMAIN MAKESHIFTS. In passing it is worth noting other German expedients for doing without things. The absorbent cotton used for dressinc of wounds has been replaced by

ii preparation from spruce wood pulp. The wood is imported from Sweden, and the finished product is said to be more advantageous for the dressing of wounds than is cotton. It is lighter, and more fluffy, and is easier to change. From a similar cellulose base the Germans get a cloth for the binding of the dressings and for the manufacture of piece-goods. Then there is a synthetic rubber which is used chiefly for tyres. It has some of the characteristic of rubber, with the exceptions of resiliency and elasticity. But probably the most startling of the German makeshifts was the bacteriabred fat, which has been put on the market 'by an enterprising brewing firm. Food substitutes are innumerable: but all of them are sad, unsatisfactory, gruesome imitations of the real thiug. I All these industries must lie slowly and painfully reorganised when peace comes, before the German will again be in a position to sally forth and fight for the trade of the world. Will lie have sufficient energy left for this stupendous and saddening undertaking? Sotnotimcs on my trips through his topsy-turvy war world I have very much doubted that the German of to-morrow will have sufficient stubborn courage to begin the old life anew.