TRAGIC POSITION.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 12 March 1926, Page 5

TRAGIC POSITION.

GERMAN EMPLOYERS

BAD ECONOMIC POLICY

BY CABLE—PBESS ASSOCIATION—COPYBIGHI' LONDON, March 11.

Mr Renwick, in his second article in the Daily Chronicle on German trade, says: “I have dealt with the position of the workers, and the situation, of the employers is equally tragic. The big industrial establishments must bear the blame for the bad economic policy of the past few years. “Firstly, they extended factories and shipbuilding yards during war-time, imagining that a victorious Germany after the war would receive the bulk of the world’s orders; secondly, they carried on the extensions in the inflation period without bringing their machinery up to date; thirdly, when the inflation ceased, they kept on turning out vast quantities of goods for which there were no markets; fourthly, borrowed money, including part of the Dawes loan, was squandered unproductively. This was continued. When we remember the tax burdens, the unbelievably freakish extravagances, and the overstaffed bureaucratic departments, it is obvious that the position of the German industrials is not enviable.”

Mr Renwick says this policy resulted in 1000 bankruptcies monthly. The 1925 figures for January were 3779 and for February 3720. Though the figures include many worthless mushroom growths, many long-established firms shared a similar fate. Though manufacturers agree that they must make higher quality goods, this is not done in most lines, foreign buyers finding British goods superior. German wireless manufacturers admit that British competitors are technically two years in front, while British motorcars are at least twice as good as the German cars. Before the war the shares of German companies were officially quoted on the Stock Exchange at 25.000 million gold marks, and today they, together with many newlyformed concerns, only .aggregate 6500 million gold marks.