“MERCHANT STINNES.”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18906, 5 July 1923, Page 9

“MERCHANT STINNES.”

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN’S PEN PICTURE.

The following portrait of _ Hugo Stinnes appeared recently in the Vienna Morgen* from the pen of Maximilian Harden, the famous publicist. Herr Harden says that this is the Stinnes of the period before the international manipulations of the last three years. To this new Stinnes, he says, he will devote another article:- — Ho really exists. In Mulheimj on the Ruhr, where he was born; in Berlin, Hamburg, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Karlsbad, Oberhof, Rome, Amsterdam, Zurich—wherever there is something to organise or to negotiate. His lather and grandfather were barge-owners on the Ruhr. The grandfather already knew, and adopted, the system of the vertical trust; instead of acquiring large number of similar worksin his case shipping companies—he built his own barges and transported his own coal. The grandson extended the system'. His paper comes from his own forests; his own sawmills, his own cellulose factories, his newspapers are turned Out from _ his own printing works; but this is of_ little importance. It is not worth mentioning alongside the coal and iron mines, the iron and steel and engineering works, the power stations and shipping in his hands. -ind the owner of this -wealth, waxing with each new moon and waning with'none, calls himself simply Hugo Stinnes, merchant. This is not a pose, a gesture ; he wants to appear no more than he is. He became a merchant when with 50,000. gold marks, received from his father he founded his independent business. He remained a merchant whose trade with English coal till 1914 was not leas than his German, coal trade. Without foreign help -he made himself the mightiest of ,liiS * kind'. His mother was a kindly woman of Gallic-German extraction, ’ nee Goupiephe. From her he inherited his dark complexion and his chestnut hair. He. has not the Jewish appearance which some people falsely attribute to him. He resembles the German burgesses portrayed by the painter Matthias Grunewald; his head might sit on the neck of an honourable member of a Cologne guild, such as we see in pictures by old Cologne painters. When many years ago I saw him at a meeting of a board of directors ... I saw the glow of fanatical eyes pver narrow cheeks. These cheeks are now fuller, the lips somewhat heavier; yet these eyes,, which now search the depth of other mysteries, can still laugh gaily or shoot lightnings of mistrust. In those days he rarely left the' boundaries of his mining and iron district; only now and then, after a ten-hour day of negotiations, would he come to Berlin, but not for its hedonism ; that had no attractions for him. THE STINNES HOME. In his schooldays he spent the holidays sometimes in the mountains, sometimes .inLuxemburg, sometimes in Noordwijk, the mighty melodies of which enchanted and soothed the heart even of this visionary. Much of the time he sat beside bis mother, in the old Mulheim house, which looked like a guild master’s, in the warm corner of bourgeois German family life. In early morning the knitted cosy kept the coffee warm. Midday and evening all joined; around the table. The father was at the same time teacher, friend, and companion of the children, who, while quite voting, had had to listen to reports of complicated business transactions, and then to repeat what they had learned. Stinnes’s mother was his father's, only help. Clothing, furniture, pottery, everything the simplest possible, expressed the nature of this Rhineland family. _ In days when it was the custom for heirs of industrial and financial magnates to possess a horse, a motor boat a discreet bachelor’s flat, and a huge private banking account, these children still loved the home; and Hugo Stinnes, later to be the instructor of German ambassadors, carried his silver watch on a steel chain. Even to-day, like the father, ho wears raw sailor boots, impossible lounge suits, ready-made neckties, and an old bowler bat. He does not smoke, drinks only light wine, is unconcerned as to the taste of what he eats. Hen- Emil Kirdorf hves magnificently in Stnoithof. Herr 4ugust Thyssen lives in Chateau LandsW. Round and below the Hill where Krupp’s mansion stands the directors of the company have magnificent villas. Merchant Stinnes remains where he is. His stuav is not much.-larger than Michael Angelo’s and sometimes behind the forehead of the Mulheim man. for the length of a lightning flash, there is a physical resemblance to Buonarotti.