Second Edition. STAMPING OUT ENGLISH GOODS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 291, 7 December 1914, Page 6

Second Edition. STAMPING OUT ENGLISH GOODS.

GERMANY'S MADE-IN-CERMANY CAMPAIGN.

The professors, parsons, merchants, and journalists whom the Fatherland has mobilised against this country are making great play in their appeals to public opinion abroad with the commercial warfare which Great Britain is at present waging on Germany In view.of all this outcry, writes Mr G. V. Williams, in the London "Dad. j Mail," it is instructive to find that the simple-minded German business man has not a soul above making a <*ood thing out of this war at the expense of our trade with Germany. Ever since the tremendou, commercial development of Germany began with the peace of Frankfurt the predilection of the German for everything English has sorL.lv rankled with the German manufacturer. It would bo idle to pretend that the thrifty German was impelled to buy British goods because he knew them to be better and more durable than the lamentable shoddy turned out by some.bratiehes of industry in Germany. It was simply a question of snobbery. It was chic—or. as the German would say, in one !pf .those horrible hybrid words so popular m the FatherlancWnobel, 'to have ( one?s elothes made in London, or, failing that, to have them cut from "Englischev Stoff," cloth that in.most cases w.'.-, never nearer England than Saxony. During .the past decade; which ii as seen tli'e birth of the athletic. German, a certain brand of London cigarette—quite a good cigarette, but almost wholly, unknown to English

smokers—has been the thing. "EXGLISCH" INSCRIPTIONS. In German eyes England has stood for everything that ,is solid and good and aristocratic and hobel for so many years that a great German business of trade-mark faking? has grown up in order to cope with the Fatherland's Anglomania. The German hatter, for instance, had to reckon on his customers disdaining any-hat that did not hear the/inscription (in large gold letters on a rich red'silk lining), "Englisch'(sic!) Make" or "Prima Quality London" or some such similarly English announcement. Sheffield steel.. English "Keks" (a German attempt at the English word "cakes," which for some unknoAvn reason is held ir Germany to signify "biscuit"). English saddles and gloves and writing paper—all these things were the fas hion, and they, or their German sub stitutesv with faked English 'trade labels, were sold to thousands of Ger man customers in Germany. The present fierce outburst of Anglo phobia in Germany, deliberately farm ed by the German Government, has seemed to the German manufacturer! to give them tiftftfertihimfCee to breal at last with the hated,;Brit : sh com petition. The great mass of better class Germans have never been hood winked by the German tradef-marh fakers, but have always bought Britis] goods, when they wanted somethin; good and durable in certain speciii< lines. The German manufacturers art now'"out" to capture this trade Hitherto powerless to withstand Bri tish competition in their own line o business, the present ape-like malice o the German people where everythi;: British is concerned gives them vha they hold to lie a golden opportunity. ADVERTISING! CAMPAIGN. A great advertising, campaign agains British goods has accordingly beei started in the German newspapers These-advertisements give 'a good ide; of thc;-British goods that are indis pensable to the Germans, as withou the least doubt the Germans them selves will presenty find. "As a substitute for English coal,' runs an advertisement in the "Bet liner. Tageblatt," "we can delivei first-class Westphalian coal suit.ibli for any purpose." Hero is another: "Linden Velvet. Autumn .ind win tcr \yill doubtless bring a large nutn her of orders to the Linden factories At the present moment we fee! wi may express our satisfaction that •■;•< have-'bought 'Linden Fabrics,' whirl from their raw state onward are ( pure- German product, to the firsi place in the whole output of velvet, Jn quality- and price Linden has lonp since beaten the older English product."

Gustav Cords, the Berlin Debonbam and Ereebody's, whose boast of yore was of its English stuffs for tailormades and French silks and satins, now advertises its "good German stuffs:" ■

"Smokers!" runs an appeal in the "Vossische Zeitung," "England is boycotting German wares. Do not support English capital! Don't smoke the cigarettes of the English Tobacco Trust, whose principal shareholders have contributed half a million marks (£25,000) to the. English war funds. This trust, established in London, wl.icli is trying to subjugate our German tobacco industry, has a number of factories also in Germany. Whoever smokes the brands of these firms is sending, money into the enemy's country! Pay attention to the placards in the cigar shops!" This proclamation is signed by.tile "Office for the Combating of the Tobacco Trust in Greater Berlin." "Away with English raincoats (many millions, hitherto sold in Germany)!" is the form in which an anonymous advertiser appeals for capital in the "Berliner Tageblatt" to star*' a factory of German mackintoshes.