SMART GERMAN PRACTICE.

Press, Volume L, Issue 15120, 9 November 1914, Page 4

SMART GERMAN PRACTICE.

HOW ENGLISH TRADERS WERE CAUGHT.

A BUSINESS MANS IMPRESSIONS

Mr A. E. Mubin, a, former president o; tho Wellington Chamber of Commerce, and of the New Zealand Woolbrokers' Association, returned from a prolonged visit to England on Friday last. "Whilo there ho was almost daily :ii tlio city on business, and there learned in tlie very heart of tho Empire and tho heart of the world of finance something of the smart practice followed by German banks nnd trading houses long" before England had .-uspected that sho might lio culled upon to fight Germany. In an interview given to the •'Evening Post on Saturday, Mr Ma bin said: ••German credit is now gone beyond recall. 1-

will take, many, many years, if over at all, no matter what tho issue c: tho war may be, for Germans to re-estab-lish themselves in tho esteem of business men. For tome time before the war. long before Englishmen thougnt conflict was probable German banks were preparing for it. unloading paper and holding on firmly to gold, l'rac.ically no one in the City had the slightest suspicion of what was afoot. Bradford was teiTiblv hit by tho war. All it held was £:3,7-:-O.(KX) of German p-ioer. The Germans had the wool, and they cannot pay and will not pay. Whatever the British Government and' BritMi financial houses knew- or did not know, tho German banks and large trading houses clearly knew that v-ar was pending It was only when the crash came that London "knew what had been going on. BUSINESSES RUINED. "Huiirlreds.of lavgo houses in London to-day do not know where they etauu. Goods are locked up in ships held by the Germans, or on German ships ni German waters, or in neutral poi\s. You will find that never again will British traders trust their goods to German thins: never again will Germany bo able to obtain the credit she did 'before the war: never again will Germans ho employed m English houses. Why. they had mastered all the details of English banks' aiunrs— knew and forwarded to the German authorities where every atrong-room was and what it contained. England was infested with German spies. But it was not realised how serious tins menace had become until tho war sfirtcd Uis now well understood in England that no Gorman, naturalised o- otherwise, is safe and they are. all beiu" rounded up and kept under survclknce in the United. Won, with a thoroughness that we m Now Zealanu cannot yet appreciate. NO DOUBT ABOUT THE RESULT. -Tho feeling in England with regard * 4V,w M-ir is aut y described by & WinstoT Chun-hill' Tho bulldog's noso is turned back m order that go can breathe while he holds on all tho ''"■There is not tho slightest doubt in nll England, Ireland, and Scotland about the result of this must, and will be crushed. There » no excitement, no Jingoism, no wing of fla"*. 1 never saw a people so qu.etly i. determined as the British are Xou I would not imagine that it could bo so, considering tho tremendous problen that has to bo solved and will be solved. It has taken a long time tor Enghsnmen to not their feeling up. but it will take a very long time for them to live it down. HOPELESS FINANCIAL POSITION. "It is felt iv this city that Germany's financial and trading condition is now hopeless. No one living will ever I trust a German again. 1 have found the English a fairly tolerant people before tho war, bub their hatred of Germany and Germans to-day is bitter beyond description, and it is doubtful if ever in our time it will bo effaced. The treachery—and, above all, the vile mutilations of tho uelgiuns, men, women, and children —havo made the German namo an abomination. At first when we heard of these horrors some reasonably though they wcro exaggerated. But it was all only too true. By every boat people are arriving in Englandwith hands cut off, eyes gouged out.'children mutilated, and women battered about by -Gorman soldiers. Thesr nrfi but tho survivors of tho butcheries, '''ho number of those who wero slaughtered in cold blood will never be known."'

Speaking of tho wool trad*.,. Mr Mabin told tho '"Post" reporter that, apart from tho vast quantities of woo! bought by Germans Iron Bradford and never paid for, the Germans took tho wool stored in France and Belgium, and no doubt smashed up the mills there. It was impossible to say how long pre?out prices for New Zealand wools would be maintained, but it- was clear that it would ho a long time before the Continent, as it was underKtood in relation to wool, would be a buyer.