CONTROL OF GERMAN INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24205, 25 January 1940, Page 13

CONTROL OF GERMAN INDUSTRY

"There is not a single action of a German business man that is not hampered by a red tape of steel wire tenacity," writes Dr Felix Beyer, a former German economist, in an American trade magazine. Daily he must fight for his raw materials. He cannot hire or fire a worker without permission of the local Government agency, the district labour governor, the Labour Front, or the Army. Rearmament and lack of foreign exchange have resulted in a vast bureaucracy, thousands of regulations and bureaucratic manipulations which are an oppressive burden on private business. There are fights of competency between the different authorities. There is a tendency to shift responsibility, and complaining firms go whenever possible the highest authority, which may be overburdened . with work, while the lower authority loses authority. The control of labour, raw materials, and prices is, however, not the end of Government interference. Of late, there has been introduced also a control of production costs. This control is limited to the execution of Government orders, which, in most heavy industry plants, constitute a majority of all orders." -