GRAFT

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 35207, 18 May 1918, Page 4

GRAFT

GIORMAN WAR SCANDALS. .SIONSATIONAL CHARGES IN THK RIOiOHSTAU. Amsterdam. An extraordinary profit-coring scan. diil, in which the German. War Department in openly alleged to bo involved, hsis been disclosed by discussion in the Minn. Committee of tho itoicliHtsijf. .ft appear* that Tlorr Bergo. head of tho Daimler Motor Co., lliroak'iiiKl to rediKio si ml even entirely to stop I he. production of motorwagons unless the- company received mi inoroiisu of 50 i>cr eeiifc. on their prices. The reply of the War Department, which had already iicquiesced ■in previous enormous increases, was to place tho Daimler concern under military supervision. Several speakers declared that many ■German companies were making ''indecent" profits because tho authorities declined to exerci.se. control over i their books, iind TTerr Nosko (Socialj isi) iivi'rred thitt this scandal also applied to Knipp's. Hen - LioKcbinjx (I'rop;reKsivc) «ai<l jtluit for one motor waufoti which cost C 2."0 Ihe Daimler Company had been ".ettiiiK G7ijO, "and now they want to increase by another GO per cent, even 1h is scandalous price, under ihe threat of stopping work urgently needed for the defence of the country." General Scheiisch. Director of the War Department, mndo a feeble reply to those sh'fements sind promised !'ii inquiry. On this Hen* Nosko cried. "When workmen threaten to «Lriko they are court-martiallexl for biuh treason. Why should this man IJcrtre be all<m<vl fo escape? Gerniiiiiv." ho added, "cronns under tho burden of a debt of £fi,000.000,000. while many German industrial concerns are simply drenched with pold." TToiv Kr/.berfer flntlv accused tho of the Wt Ministry of comnlieitv in the falsifications of the Dnimlor Company's 'accountß. as ofborwise it would havo been impossible to overlook tho fact, that the company was making 173 per cent, nrofifc on each motor wagon.