NO GERMANS NEED APPLY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 January 1925, Page 4

NO GERMANS NEED APPLY

The question of their attitude towards applications for space from nationals of ex-enemy countries, which the directors of the Dunedin Exhibition were called upon to decide last night, must have been a difficult matter to handle. But we cannot help thinking that the motion carried at the end of the discussion in committee indicates that the line of least resistance was taken. “In view of the popular sentiment in the Dominion’’ the board decided not to grant space to ex-enemy exhibitors. Quite possibly popular sentiment will applaud that finding ; whether popular sentiment be justified or right, in its view is quite another matter. Despite the Biblical injunction, it will be next to impossible for any Britisher or any Frenchman of this generation to* love the Germans. The Turks, perhaps, but not the Germans; Jacko for the most part fought fairly; Fritz didn’t. At the same time, we are not above trading with Germany to-cl ay, and the Exhibition will be primarily a commercial concern. Germany cannot be expected to meet her reparation payments without a big export trade, and tho world must realise that. Ten days ago the Star gave an idea of the extent to which toys and fancy goods of German manufacture figured on the Christmas counters of Hawera. shops, and of the extent, too, to which the public was buying these articles. “The question of sentiment,” said one retailer, “has practically gone.” fThe business men of Dunedin appear to think otherwise; but it has to be admitted that the average citizen, who would buy a German doll for two shillings in preference to a British doll at three and six, is the very man who would rate the authorities up hill and down dale for daring to display Germ an machinery at an “international” exhibition.. The directors have taken the safe course, and we cannot blame them, although it would have been. a. magnificent opportunity to give the publio a lead in forgetting the bitter® of the past. Some things we shall never forget—the valour of our men and what they endured —but we belong to a race of sportsmen whose pride it is that they are good lo.sers. This .time we won, so more than ever can we afford to let bygones be bygones. If it were possible, there are many who would wish to see the New Zealand market stocked with nothing but British goods. That is a praiseworthy desire, and one worth} 7 of fulfilment so long as British goods offer the best value. If Germany can produce a better article more cheaply; this country is entitled to know it. not necessarily so that it may buy from Germany—although in those circumstances it would —'but in order that the best brains in British industry fnay be set to winning back any advantage lost to German manufacturers. Let us be British by all means; but in the modern' industrial world no nation can claim a. monopoly, and to-day the new Germany faces Britain, as a competitor in the more peaceful but equally strenuous fight for supremacy on the world’s markets. Neither burying our bead in the sand nor barring ex-enemy exhibits from Dunedin will get rid of that fact.