The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1924. GERMANY’S PEACE FLEET.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 9 June 1924, Page 8

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1924. GERMANY’S PEACE FLEET.

To the amazement of the world the uermans, atter only uiree yeais worn, we are loiu, nave uu almost mantl-ne-w neet ox some million tons unoat, wnicn is said to De pracueaiiy one-nail oi tne total snipping mey possessed bexore tne war. Ifus new neet, which is designed to wage a relentless trade warfare against all others, is described as being spienuialy organised on a system ol national co-operation never before seen, and it is "backed b> the whole phalanx oX Germany's great industrial trusts." In the three years Horn July 1, Idl’d, to July 1, IdAl, according to a contributor to “ The .Nineteenth Century," the tonnage launched from Uremia n yards to the order of German owners lias averaged at a low estimate about 500 ,UUU tons per annum, and he adds : "In order to estimate tile magnitude of this effort, it may be recalled that tiie output of the German yards on behalf of German owners in three years immediaitely preceding the war averaged oni> about three hundred thousand tons per annum." The financial manoeuvres of the German shipping companies,' and the manner in which the .inflation policy lias been exploited by the industrial magnates, acting in collusion with the shipping- companies and the ship-building- works, says this writer, has aroused much criticism outside Germany, but the retort of the shipping companies is that “their policy was fully justified by the needs of the nation as a whole," and we are told further that: “If by faltering they had missed this wonderful opportunity for commercial recuperation, Germany might well.have had to wait many years before regaining a place on the sen; in the meantime tlie whole of the overseas trade upon which she is to such a large extent dependent, to say nothing of the vast transit trade done by such ports as Bremen and Hamburg-, would have been forfeited in favour of tbe foreign shipping companies that swarmed into the North Sea ports after the' war. ‘To be perfectly frank,’ said a leading Hamburg banker, e one must confess that German labour lias been sadly exploited in tbe process of reconstructing tliG' mercantaile fleet. It is no less true, however, that the fleet could not have been built without very considerable' sacrifices on the part of the German capitalist as well. The capitalist has had to forego his dividends by continually reinvesting his profits in laying down new keels.’ " In reply to this German contention, the writer in “The Nineteenth Century" points out that the German capitalist has been greatly helped by the Government’s millions, and that he now has a handsome commercial asset in his possession, whereas the German working- man has "only’ the remembrance of some very lean and illpaid years." The two most important German shipping lines, the Hamburg-Amerika and _ the North German Lloyd, are said to lie leaders in the' remarkable new system of highly organised trusts which characterises the new Germany, and its watchword incited as being “national industrial co-operation." Before the war, it is recalled, these two com ponies were often keen rivals, but now, although respecting- each other's spheres of interest, they ‘‘work into each other s hano.s wherever possible.” Aiound them are grouped a score of other Gershipping firms, we are told, and thov all recognise the' principle of “national collaboration in a united effort to bring Germany to the front a train ■"