GERMANS IN BRITAIN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 14244, 12 March 1917, Page 9

GERMANS IN BRITAIN.

THEIR GRIP ON TOY TRADE

Toy week began in ' Manchester on ' Monday, says' the _ Daily Mail. For' many.yeara it has f beeii 'the custom of! the toy trade to -meet in Manchester j during the first week of January and display the newest toys in the stock rooms of the hotels. Orders are booked by manufacturers and importers. "I am going down to Manchester for the last time," said a Jjondon toy dealer who has "joined up." ''All I hope is. that my trade will not go to a German firm. But I am afraid it will. They will all be there; the same men who before the war used to boast of their parent firms in Bavaria and proudly display their brass plates on their doors in London with the names of Bavarian toy towns on them. 1

"You may not bo able to recognise them all. They call themselves British; they changed their names to British names; and because they cannot import their German goods they are dealing in British goods. But it is for the war only, and when the war is over they will bo importing and under-selling us again.

"Well, I suppose they have been lucky and I have been . unlucky. 1 do not grumble at joining the Army. t shall try to do my best, but it does hurt a bit to se t\ese naturalised Germany pome of whom are actual owners of firms in Germany, parading their exemptions from military Hervjce ami taking 'every penny of trade from real British subjects." ,