TRADE EXPANSION

Evening Star, Issue 23130, 2 December 1938, Page 9

TRADE EXPANSION

GERMAN METHODS EXPLAINED ECONOMIC COMPETITION IN EUROPE (British Official Wireless.) Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, November 30. An important reference to the conditions of economic competition in Europe was made by the Secretary of the Department of Overseas Trade (Mr R. S. Hudson) in a speech at the end of the House of Commons debate on a private member’s motion on the development of export trade. Mr Hudson, dealing with a question why Britain did not follow the example of the United States in refusing “ most-favoured-nation ’* treatment to German goods, said there was no discrimination against British goods in Germany, as it was stated was the case with certain United States goods. The British complaint against Germany was not that, but that by her methods she was destroying trade throughout the world. According to the information he possessed in his department, it appeared that in the countries of Central and South-eastern Europe, Germany was trading on the basis of paying to producers in those countries much more than the world paid. If, obviously at the expense of the German people, Germany was obtaining an economic stranglehold on some of those countries by raising the cost of living to her own people and exporting goods at less than cost price, the only method to meet this competition was to organise British industries so that they would be able to speak gs units with industries in Germany. Britain was stronger financially .ban many other countries certainly stronger than any of the totalitarian States, Mr Hudson said, and thus had an advantage which would result an her winning the fight. His department was doing its best to see that more and more industries were organised on that basis. QUIETLY DROPPED NEGOTIATIONS WITH GERMANY. LONDON, December 1. (Received December 2, at 8 a.m.) The ‘ News Chronicle ’ says the British move for the development of Anglo-German trade, concerning which officials recently visited Berlin, has been quietly dropped* temporarily owing to the changed temper of the German Government.