BRITISH AND GERMAN TRADE

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 124, 2 June 1910, Page 2

BRITISH AND GERMAN TRADE

The most thought-provoking article in all the reviews for April is that by Mr Benjamin Kidd in the Fortnightly dealing, among other things, with the trade of Great Britain and of vGermany. Mr Kidd points out that.out of a total export of domestic produce of some £340,000,000 Germiny sends to the 550 millions constituting the principal leading nations of civilisation no less than £290,000,000, or 85 per cent, of the whole. As regards Great Britain, out of a total of some £420,000,000 domestic exports £190,----000,000 go to Europe and the United States. In these markets Germany is already not only relatively but absolutely ahead of Great Britain, and this by the enormous total of some £100,000,000 yearly. Germany stands, as the first result of her creed of ■thinking in communities, absolutely the first and most effective industrial producer amongst all the nations of the world. "Sea power," concludes Mr Kidd, "is the last fact which stands between Germany and the supreme position in international commerce. At present Germany sends only some £50,000,000, or about a seventh, of her total domestic produce to the markets of the world outside Europe and the United States. Great Britain, already worsted in these more competitive markets, sends £240,000,000, or more than half, of her total domestic produce to the markets which . lie in complemental regions of the world. We have here all the elements of an international situation of absolutely first-class significance^ a position of the kind towards which the historian sees afterwards that centuries of history have slowly ripened. Does any man who understands the subject think there is any power in Germany, or indeed any power in the world, which can prevent Germany, sh,e having thus accomplished the first stage of her work, from closing now with Great Britain for her legitimate share of this £240,000,000 of overseas trade? Here it is that we unmask the shadow which looms like a real presence behind all the moves of present-day diplomacy and behind all the colossal armaments that indicate the present preparations for a new struggle for sea power."