THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1916. THE ECONOMIC WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16309, 16 August 1916, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1916. THE ECONOMIC WAR.

♦ The Commonwealth prohibition of the sale of any mining or metallurgical company to any but British subjects residing within the Empire is another defensive action in the economic war which has been secretly or openly waged by Ger- ' many for many years. The Austra- I lian base metal industry had actu- i ally passed into the hands of that ; huge German metal syndicate which ! practically controlled the zinc and spelter of the world, and was so ! strong through the indifferentism of British and other governments that j many months after war broke out the Imperial authorities were dealing with its agents in the United Kingdom. Under a recent arrangement the Imperial, Government is advancing £500,000 to establish a British reduction plant for the treatment of Australian concentrates and has agreed to purchase 100,000 tons of these concentrates annually for a period of ten years. The Commonwealth Government, on its part, is carefully closing every visible open(ing in the meshes of the law whereby I German control of the Australian jbase metal industry might re-enter. Important as is this co-operative British and Australian arrangement it is only a phase of the Allied determination to take effective defensive action against the German plot to secure economic as well as military domination of the world. The bearing of the metal question upon the aggressive methods of Germany is obscured by the extraordinarily far-reaching plan of the German scheme of conquest. The hegemony of Europe, the wealth of Asia and Africa, the wide lands and infinite opportunities of conquered colonies and dominions, the lordship of land, air and water with all the j powers of exploitation thereto appertaining, were the scheduled prizes of the victorious wars for which Germany has prepared these fifty years. The secure enthronement of the German metal industries which are so profitable in peace and so essential in war was a practical step towards this world conquest; upon this the energy of Germany has been concentrated, the Kaiser himself being a large shareholder in Krupp's and Krupp's being a wholehearted supporter of the great metal monopoly movement. Among the immediate aims of the war was the permanent capture of the great mineral zone which extends through Belgium, Northern France, Luxemburg, Alsace-Lorraine and the Verdun country. The mines of Old Germany are becoming exhausted, so that the financial and military fabric of Kaiserisra literally depended upon an uninterrupted supply of metals from mines beyond its political control or within the provinces torn from France in 1871. If . Germany were driven behind the Rhine she would have to yield through sheer lack of metal. If economic war is waged upon her as

a penalty for her crimes at the con- 1 elusion of a peace satisfactory to • • the Allies, she will not be able tor carry on the huge metal industries ; from which she would draw much : of the wealth and the whole of the material for renewed military preparations. Some, at any rate, of the teeth of military Germany would be drawn. France, Luxemburg, Belgium, on her frontiers, as Australia overseas, would carry on their own metal industries with increased wealth and population instead of paying to military Germany a most dangerous tribute. ! In order to avail itself of the iron j deposits of Luxemburg, Germany' formed with that little state a tariff union, the working of which ought to interest those who imagine that economic war is an invention of the ; Allied Economic Conference. This I ; tariff union gave to Germany the ' 'absolute control of the 7,000.000 tuns ; of iron ore produced in Luxemburg | iin 191-1. According to the organ of! ■the German metal trade: "Of the ! 34,000,000 tons of iron ore worked I up in German smelters and foundries in 1913 some 23,250.000 tons came ; from the interior of the empire ; and I as of that only about 7.000,000 tons j were produced outside of Alsacei Lorraine, a simple calculation shows i that already in 1013 some 70 per J cent, of the iron ore used came I from Lorraine." The Prench iron i .ore production in 1913 was 21,000,000 ! tons, of which not less than 16.000.000 I tons came from the territory now I occupied by the Germans. Belgium j produced only 200.00*3 tons of iron ore, but enormous quantities of ; coal, while the main French coal ! fields arc also in the occupied Wri- j j tory. Is it necessary to add that i I the. German is not so devoted to j J music and to metaphysics that he' I only blunders by chance into sordid I gain and material advantage ? In I this German war of aggression tier- j man hands were promptly laid upon i the minerals needed to maintain , German war industries as in times of I j peace they were secretly laid upon j the metals of Australia.