THE ENEMY TRADE OCTOPUS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16610, 5 February 1916, Page 6

THE ENEMY TRADE OCTOPUS.

The Prime Minister of Australia recently rendered a service of considerable value to the Empire by his exposure of the measure of control which was exercised by German capital over the base metal industry in the commonwealth and by the steps which he took with the view of releasing the industry from the grip of the enemy. The manner in which German influence was enabled to secure a practically absolute control of the output from Australian mines is simply illustrative of the foresight and ingenuity that have bgen shown by German business people and financiers in extending their interests through foreign countries and in acqiu'ring a command over foreign industries. So skilfully, not to say cunningly, have they executed their plans that the ends they have had in view have not been suspected until their control of whole enterprises was complete. It was, indeed, not until after the outbreak of war that the extent to which industries carried on in British communities were subject to German control was realised. What was discovered in the case of the metal industry in Australia has been, and is still being, discovered in the case of other industries. Unfortunately, in numerous instances, honest English names cover the operations of German finance. By a legal fiction, a company registered in a British country is a British company even although the whole of the shares in it may be held by alien enemies. It is an anomaly of this kind which the Federal Government in Australia is seeking to terminate by the employment of a device that, as originally contrived, was certainly too drastic and calculated to be attended by a large degree of- injustice. To the same anomaly Lord Halsbury has— apparently, without success up to the present time—been directing public attention in the United Kingdom, particularly by

the introduction in the House of Lords of a Bill to define the conditions under which a public company might be deemed to be an enemy company. " Strange and startling," in the words of the Lord Chancellor, is the position of English companies that are owned or controlled by alien enemies. And " strange and startling " are the ramifications of German finance through industries that have in several cases assumed, in British eyes, the character of British enterprises. Among these is, if we may accept statements which have been published on the subject, the electrical industry. According to a Manchester paper, a Berlin company, familiarly known as the A. E. G., is something very much more extensive than its name implies, being in fact a vast trust either owning or controlling an enormous number of allied and subordinate companies. These subsidiary companies include one important concern in England and others in Prance and the United States. The English company is described as the result of a.ll arrangement between the A. E. G. of Berlin and the General Electric Company of New York to divide England between them, and it manufactures their controlled articles between them. But, in addition to it, there are numerous houses and agencies in the United Kingdom, many of them with English names, all of which were, prior to the war, in close touch with the centre of Germany. TTIO capital of the A. E. G. is enormous. Its principal proprietors include three banks, through whose influence banks in Switzerland are controlled, and its resources are brought to bear on any country on which it has designs. The A. E. G. concerns spread themselves throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. Their agents were to be found in every town, pushing their electrical appliances and their tungsten lamps. They are the enemies of Great Britain. English soldiers have found in their trenches fragments of shell with the letters "A.E.G." stamped on the metal. " Yet," we read in the article from which our facts are mainly gathered, " they sit enthroned in our industries to-day, fixing prices, driving out competition, ruling the electrical industry with a rod of German iron." Such a position is intolerable, and it is to be hoped that neither in this nor in any other industry in any British countTy will German capital be permitted after the war to exert any controlling influence.