The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 20, 1914. A BID FOR WORLD TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 272, 20 April 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 20, 1914. A BID FOR WORLD TRADE.

English papers have been telling of a struggle, about to commence, which is, likely to prove as severe and relentless as the competition now being waged in. the field of armaments, British manufacturers and merchants are being warned to prepare for a formidable and prolonged campaign. Within two months the "German Association for World Commerce," inspired by the Kaiser and backed by millions of money, is to take the field, to wage in the Fatherland's name tho most prodigious war of trade conquest of modern times. The promoters of tho project include every industrial organisation of importance in the country. Associations which have been at loggerheads for years have now buried their differences in order to unite Germany's economic forces in one gigantje. concentrated crusade. It will be to. Great Britain's irreparable loss if she fails to take cognisance of the movement betimes. The Gerjnan Association for World Commerea is not to be the stereotyped trade-booming syndicate of tradition. It has not/king to sell. It represents no special branches. It is to be as impersonal as tho German Government itself, of which, in fact, it will practically be an adjunct. • Its mission i- to spread far and wide tile gospel of German trade, to fight its advance-guard actions, and to blaze the way for an army of occupation in territory where German commerce Hias either had no foothold at all or a precarious one. Its scouts are to penetrate the uttermost recesses wherever there are people of purchasing power. They arc to hunt down ceaselessly the "slanders" by which it is claimed British and French rivals are systematically obstructing the development of Germany's foreign business. They are to be the organs of an Intelligence Department as vigilant as that maintained by the Headquarters Staff in time of war. On thp strength of their observations the dispositions of the Fatherland's new business army will bn based. It might be wondered why, having just attained tho greatest export figures in her history—£so4,ooo,ooo, an increase off £36,200,000 over the preceding year, and almost double the figures of 11)0.-2—Germany finds it necessary to make a fresh and still more powerful bid for foreign trade. The exp,fcinatioK is that they, are a far-seeing people. They have sixty-six million inhabitants to-day, and the. number is steadily increasing. If Germany wishes , to retain, feed and employ them and not to return to the times when she furnished :>OO,OOO emigrants a year to other countries, she must not only hold the markets, but materially widen them and conquer new ones. Export trade is a factor absolutely .vital to Germany's physical existence. Germany's gr«at trade, volume has not been amassed without a struggle eve>ry inch of the way. German competition is not only feared abroad; it is cordially hated, and the Germans claim that there is much misrepresentation of their purpose and aims. It will be one of the foremost tasks of the World 'Association to combat this opposition. "But we shall not, content ourselves with defence," said one of the leaders. "We have an elaborate construe t.ivu programme. It will .lie carlied out for the most part by a comprehensive service of special agents, familiar with the* language and customs of the country to which they are assigned. It will be their business to study every market in the world where opportunities exist for German trade. M e possess a Consular Service, but the prerogatives of its members are circumscribed by bureaucratic traditions. They have no time or training foi Argus-eyed work on the commercial skirmishing line. The World Association's agents will carry m> samples and will solicit no orders, They are to keep their eyes and ears open and will occasionally he called upon to open their mouths, for our scheme embraces a regular system of public lectures and addiesses, illustrated by kinema views. The Association has a big mission and ai: expensive one, lbi.it the sinews of war will be generously forthcoming. We snail dispose of an annual budget running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. The Kaiser has lent his allinspiring support to the enterprise." This stupendous scheme, remarks an hnglish contemporary, has special significance for Great Britain, 0 f furtherreaching import than the eventual capture by Busscldorf and Chemnitz of orders which once went to Sheffield and Manchester. The president of the German Export League once said that the Reichstag is always good for an extra Dreadnought or two if Admiral von Tirpits can justify the Estimates on the ground of "defence of German trade." Europe has been educated to believe that the armada which the Kaiser and "our magnificent Von Tirpit:--'" have built is for t he protection of German*'* golden sea-borne commerce. To Little Navyites. good at multiplication, it may be left to figure out how long Germany- will remain content with a high seas licet of

forty-one Dreadnoughts iicid neaessn Tyrol- protecting an export ami import trade worth £1,040,000,000-- the present figures—when the German Association for World Commerce Ikih raised the total to £2,080,000,000. That is the : modest ambition it sets itself. ]