LAST PRE-WAR GERMAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19171, 25 November 1924, Page 3

LAST PRE-WAR GERMAN

COMMERCIAL HONESTY. A VANISHING FACTOR. LOW CUNNING TO TRICK EACH OTHER. (By Sir Percival Phillips). During my travels through VZestem Germany I encountered an itinerant British importer who was engaged in interviewing many local manufacturers and agents desirous of increasing their foreign trade. He knew most of them well. As we talked a card was brought to him. “Ah,’’ he exclaimed, “here is something interesting for you. Take a good look at this man when he comes in. He is a ‘pre-war German’ ” There entered an ordinary specimen of the business type— a, robust, loudly polite person with the usual square head closely cropped and a tight lounge suit that threatened to burst its bonds as he bowed low and mechanically repeated his name. He produced his samples, stated his prices, was given an ordefr, and quickly went away. “A pre-war German,” repeated my friend, with mournful pride, much as he would refer to the last bottle of pre-war whisky. They ought to put him in a cage and see that no harm comes of him. There are very fewleft. FEW HONEST MEN LEFT. “By ‘pre-war German,’ ” he went on, “I mean an honest business man who can be depended upon to keep to the letter of his contract and supply goods that you can accept unreservedly as being up to sample. The war has destroyed the commercial morality of Germany. Business men have developed a kind of low cunning, and they seem to thiuk nothing of trying to get the better of each other-—to say nothing of foreigners—in every possible way. “They are dishonest in evading taxes and otherwise cheating their Government. . If you cannot trust them as individuals, how can you trust them as a nation when they want money? Firms which ten years ago would have scorned to do a mean thing now unblushingly adopt all kinds of tricks in business. When caught, they bluster or smile weakly, offer some futile explanation, and promise to make amends. Usually their tricks are merely stupid and sum to be found out.” British buyers who tour the manufacturing districts periodically usually have to waste a good deal of time wrangling over previous orders which have not been properly executed. A consignment is found to be of inferior quality and is turned back to Hamburg. The Gorman onsignee begins a long defensive campaign when challenged, and often the dispute lasts for months. An attractive electrical device is bought for Great Britain, nd when the machines arrive they are found to be badly constructed and will not work. Hardware which looks well in the sample deteriorates mysteriously in transit, and arrives i< England or Scotland well below the standard agreed upon. The foreigner who can afford to travel through Germany at the present time will have many unpleasant experiences proving that the standard of morality is lower. He has to be constantly on his guard to prevent being defrauded in mean and petty ways. As a whole the working classes have suffered less from this deterioration than the others. I have had an aged newspaper seller rush after me in the street with an extra |d due to me in change. Hotel servants are as a rule not only attentive but very honest. The same cannot be said, however, of many so-called higher types of Germans. State employees seem to consider the fleecing of foreigners one of their perquisites. It is a common thing for booking clerks at the big railway stations to “short change” travellers. RAILWAY BRIGANDAGE I first encountered this form of brigandage at Leipzig, where my change was returned in a bundle of filthy notes, mostly of 6d an>! Is denominations. After I left the window I found I had 10s too little and returned. Before I could say a word the booking clerk, who was waiting silently with two (equivalent to) 5s notes in his hand, flung them down and turned away in disgust. I was prepared for the same procedure at Elberfeld when I boooked a return ticket to Hagen. The change came back in a handful of tattered paper. Without troubling to count it I left the window, walked ten feet in a circle, returned swiftly, found the booking clerk lurking behind his parapet of tickets, and said to him, “Not enough.” Two more 5s notes were immediately disgorged without apology or explanation. A telegraph clerk was about to try it at Cologne but weakened at the last moment and surrendered all the change due to me.