GERMAN TRADE CRISIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19274, 12 March 1926, Page 11

GERMAN TRADE CRISIS.

WRONG POLICY PURSUED. MANUFACTURERS AT FAULT. NO MARKETS FOR GOODS. By Telegraph—Press' Association—Copyright. (Received 10.5 p.m.) A. and N.Z. LONDON. March 10. The second of a series of articles on German trade, written by Sir Harry Renwick, managing director of the County of London Electric Supply Company, has been published by the Daily Chonicle. The first article dealt with the hardships of (he workers. ' The situation of the employers is equally tragic, says the writer. The big industrial concerns must bear the blame owing to their bad economic policy duiing the past few years. They extended factories and shipbuilding yards in wartime, imagining that a victorious Germany after the war would receive the bulk of the world's orders. Secondly, they carried on extensions during the inflation period without bringing the machinery up-to-date. Thirdly, when 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 waste continues," says Sir Harry. " When, you remember the tax burdens, the result of unbelievably freakish extravagance of overstaffed, bureaucratic departments, it is obvious that the position of German industrial concerns is most unenviable. " Their policy resulted in 1000 bankruptcies a month in 1925, the figures for January were 3779 and for February 3720. Although the figures include many worthless mushroom growths, many long-estab-lished firms shared a similar fate. " Although manufacturers agreed that after the war they must make a higher quality of goods this was not done in most lines, foreign buyers finding British goods superior. German wireless manufacturers admit that British competitors were technically two years in front. British motor-cars are at least twice as good as German cars. " Shares in German companies before the war were officially quoted on the Stock Exchange at £1,250,000,000. Today these, together with many newlyformed companies, aggregate only £325,000,000.".