HUGO STINNES.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 September 1920, Page 11

HUGO STINNES.

■ > I .THE GERMAN DICTATOR. London, July 16"Since tlie war one man lias emerged lilce a peak above the German industrial flood —Herr Hugo Stinnes, whose insolence at the Spa Conference lias reawakened the curiosity with which for some months he has been regarded. Yet it became increasingly clear that, if more had boon known of him, the world would not have awaited the Armistice before recognising the growth of a new and dangerous force," says the Times, STINNES THE DESTROYER. "In February', 1919, the name of Stinnes was heard in the Reichstag, whenJlerr Erzberger told the House how lie had removed the great industrial leader from the sphere of the Armistice Commission because Stinnes was mainly responsible for the robbery of Belgian workshops, and because his influence at Headquarters had induced the military authorities to undertake the deportation of Belgian workers. "In June of this year Herr Breitscheidt, one of the leaders of the Independent Socialists, was more informative still. It was Stinnes, lite said, who advocated the deportation of Belgian laborers carried out 'by Von Biasing, then Governor-General of Belgium; it was Stinnes, the potent voice of the German captains of industry, who was responsible for the destruction of workshops in Belgium and Northern France, and the transportation of stdlen machinery into Gernjany. To-day it is an open secret in that country that Stinnes drew up the plan for the destruction of the' French coal mines, "So much is known of the Stinnes who moved behind the manifestations of the Great General Staff during tlie war. The post-armistice Stinnes is the same ruthless being, working now without a military screen. This Titan amon# the German minnows is not yet 50. When he was 20, it was related, he might have had a partenership, in. the family firm, but his thirst for mastery, his unbreakable belief in his pwn vision of success, pushed him to independence. ! A RUTHLESS BEING. "To-day he is drawing in riches from a greater variety of enterprises, spread more widely over Germany, than anymerchant of them all, and lie is ready for the day when the woiid boyond Germany .shall be open to him again. He has control of 15 groups of coal mines, extending even into France, his ore and metal interests in Germany and Luxemburg are colossal, six wholesale coal distribution enterprises are his, paper and pulp mills, a score of large shopping concerns, a celluloid manufactory, an hotel, textile and motor car factories, dockyards, forest areas—how much more ,'s not known. A PRESS DICTATOR. "As for the German Press, it has been falling into his net since January las't, when he and a certain Herr Hugonberg founded the Veritas Publishing Company, with a view to securing as many newspapers as possible, to subserve other interests. Stinnes bought up the printing firm which owned the semi-offi-cial German Gazette, which at the time of the revolution changed its name from 'Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung to Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. Then he reached out into South Germany and took the Munich and Aug,sburg Abend Zeitung, and one by one other publications were drawn 'in, until to-day he is believed to own or control nearly 70. "Ownership is not always necessary to him, for he can dictate through the printing businesses he possesses. When he gave 20,000,000 marks for the great 'Buxenstein printing business he acquired the right to command the policy of a dozen newspapers. There is no section of Germany which to-day does not contain a publication sedulously propagating the ideas which Hugo Stinnes thinks well to support. HIS RAGE. ' '•'These ideas are utterly and stubbornly reactionary. Iu the vision of a new Germany which has come to Stinnes the place of authority is no longer held by the landliolding nobles, with their hold upon the leadership of Army and Civil Service, but by the industrial captains, the controllers of 'big business,' men who bring a fierce and unflagging energy to the service of inordinate ambition. It is still a Germany controlled by a few that Stinnes sees, and chief among the few himself. The German People's Party, which is the party o> reaction, thS party of' revenge, knows Stinnes as its most important member. "The ideas of that party, which are 'his ideas, are echoed and % re-echoed by the newspapers he controls. The recovery, by whatsoever means, of German supremacy in the realm of commerce, as the certain preliminary to supremacy in all else —this is the force that moves tlm man. In the shameless destruction nf French and Belgian factories, : n the wanton laying waste of French coalmines, he played his part during tlie war towards the weakening of competitors—the arrogant insolence of his behaviour at Spa is the measure of the rage with which he and others of his kidney would see this damage repaired."