GERMANY TO-DAY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20768, 1 July 1937, Page 8

GERMANY TO-DAY

CONDITIONS QUITE SATISFACTORY HITLER’S LEADERSHIP PRAISED By Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, June 30. Conditions in Germany at the present time are quite satisfactory according to Captain M. Schmitt, of the Hamburg-Amerika Line vessel Gera, which arrived in Auckland with a cargo of drum bitumen oil, petrol and similar products from New Orleans and Gulf of Mexico ports. “We are just taking things quietly,” he said. “The people are not grumbling. Herr Hitler is a good man and is doing his best for the general welfare of the people. The man who has a penny to spend has to spend it to help on the man who is in need.” “Yes,” supplemented Captain Koehler, marine superintendent of the Line. “Herr Hitler has done a wonderful tot for Germany. Without him Germany would have been smashed long ago. People criticised him for rearming and building up the army, but what was he to do? He could not have men walking the streets on the dole and having them trained ‘ the army does not cost much more than th? dole. They say foreign people don't trust Herr Hitler. We trust him and if others do not well the Captain shrugged, “I can only say I’m sorry’.” Captain Schmitt said that the localising of control under one head was a factor contributing greatly to the state of affairs in his country. Before there was considerable industrial strife, but those days went with the passing of party politics. He said there was no need for more than about half a dozen honourable men to run the country. The Gera is more or less pioneering a new route for the company, but whether the service will continue is still indefinite. The difficulty, explained Captain Schmitt, was coal, there being no coaling stations between Panama and New Zealand This meant that bunkers took up too much space. There was any amount of cargo offering, and the cry of shippers In Gulf ports was for space and more space. The Gera brought a quantity of deck cargo as she had more than she could stow below hatches. The Gera, which is of 5155 tons burden, will proceed via New Zealand ports to Australia, them? to South Africa and back to the Caribbean Sea.