STUDY OF WORLD CONDITIONS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22435, 23 June 1938, Page 17

STUDY OF WORLD CONDITIONS

THOROUGH RESEARCH IN GERMANY MANY ACTIVE SOURCES OF INFORMATION MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED I ' IN NEW ZEALAND Evidence of the complete thoroughness with which Germany is securing information on conditions jn every part of the world is given by a statement on the work of the Institut fur Weltwirtschaft (Institute for World Economic Information), situated at Kiel, which was made to a reporter of “The Press” yesterday by Mr N. S. Woods, secretary of the Christchurch Youth Centre, who some months ago made a visit to Germany when he was studying industrial conditions abroad. He secured the privilege of observing part of the work of the institute, which is a State organisation, and during his visit saw a map of the world with pins indicating every source of information. There were 111 pins in the map of New Zealand, indicating that there was this number of sources of information in the Dominion. . “Practically every report issued by the governments of the world are secured by the institute,” said Mr Woods. He had seen, he said, New Zealand Government reports dealing with various matters. There were active sources of information in every part of the world, including HI i p New Zealand. In addition, the institute took practically every newspaper of any moment published in every country of the world. • ■ There was a large staff of linguists to deal with the material thus obtained, as well as a highly qualified staff of economists and statisticians to analyse and conduct research into the information, he said. When the newspapers were received a staff of experts selected clippings of materials of special interest from one file, while another file was kept intact. The clippings were classified and sent to the research departments. “The institute recently turned out a report on New Zealand milk marketing which shows a remarkably intimate knowledge of the conditions, outlook, and difficulties of - New Zealand dairying," said Mr Woods. On the purely economic side, he said, the institute was very willing to co-operate with other parts of the world in the exchange of information. A recent study was made of fire insurance statistics in relation to trade cycles, and the institute was willing to exchange information from Germany for information from other places. Valuable pieces of research work were published, known as the Kiel archives, mostly in German, but sometimes in English. “As an indication of the size of the institute.” Mr Woods added, “there is a bookbinding department which works full time all the year round binding both the material which comes in and which is published.”