INDUSTRIAL GERMANY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19736, 12 March 1926, Page 9

INDUSTRIAL GERMANY

A CRAVE SITUATION. FRUITS OF BAD ECONOMIC POLICY. (I’icß* Association—Bj Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON. March 10. (Received March 11, at 11.30 p.m.) Sir tleorge Renwick in his second article in the Daily Chronicle on German trade says: “I have dealt with the position of the workers. The situation of the employers is equally tragic. The largo industrial establishments must bear the blame for the bad economic policy of the past few years. First, they extended their factories and shipbuilding yards during 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. Thiidlv, “when inflation ceased they kept turning out vast quantities of goods for which there were no markets. Fourthly, they borrowed money, including part of the Dawes Loan and squandered it linproductively. This waste continues and when we remember the tax burdens the result is unbelievably freakish. The extravagance of the over-staffed bueraucratic departments is obvious and the Gorman industrials’ position is not enviable. Their policy has resulted in 1000 bankruptcies a month. The 1925 figures arc; January 3779, February 5720. Though these figures include ’ many worthless mushroom growths many long-established firms shared a similar fate. Though the manufacturers agree that they must make higher quality goods this is not do: and in most lines foreign buyers find British goods superior to German. Wireless manufacturers admit that their British competitors are technically two years in front. British motor cars at least twice as good as German. Pre-war shares in German companies were officially qoted on the Stock Exchange at 20,000,000, 000 gold marks. To-day they, together with many newly formed companies, only agregate 6,500,000,000 gold marks.”—A. and N.Z. Cable.