The morning journal-courier., 1908-09-10
Depends on Foreign Trade.

~ iiuo pcSh ototSb ps pSA mus 'N''' omists that more than 50 per cent. of Germanys population Is dependent di- rectly on foreign trade. That Is why the kaiser rattles his saber and bran dishes the mailed fist whenever foreign powers threaten to gobble up Morocco, Persia or the other few remaining "open markets" of the world. Export business, in other words, is vitally nec- essary to the welfare of Germany's in- dustrial element. It is life and death question. Thus, with America---the Fatherland's second best customer cancelling orders instead of piling in with fresh ones, Germany Is face to face with a serious proposition. And hard times have been the inevitable result.
 The only semblance of silver lin- ing to the cloud of national industrial depression is that 1t has blighted the country during the harvest season. for the tens of thousands of workless arti- sans and factory hands-men, women and chidren-thrown out of employ ment in the manufacturing towns temporarily have emigrated into the rural districts and found fairly remu. nerative work as farmhands. Being unskilled at agricultural labor, these "irregulars" are compelled to take any sort of work farmers offer and at almost any wages, but enough of them have found occupation to avoid glutting the towns and cities with a floating, jobless population So thus far there have not been streams of haggard-eyed work-seekers, which one Is accustomed to look for in soup kitchens and the other trappings of unemployment; but If the country continues to lack confidence-and that is the handspring of. the situation autumn and winter will bring these temporarily employed artisan-farm- hands back to their homes in droves and provoke economic conditions of truly dangerous proportions.
 Rich Mans Panic.
 Germany. like America, however is undergoing essentially rich mans panic" or state of depression, that ef- fects primarily the man of means and only indirectly the working masses. For this situation the banks and cap italists are chiefly 10 blame. Terrified by the American situation" and ner- vously distrustful the great German financial institutions are hanging on grim tenacity of a drowning mans grasp at straw
 Credit System Suspended.
 The condition of affairs may be described broadly by stating that the credit system, so far as the banks are concerned, has been suspended prac- tcally No sort Of security and no sort of emergency can persuade banks to extend or even renew long stand 1 ing, thoroughly sound credits, even if | 1t be a Krupp or a Hamburg -Ameri- can line which seeks to borrow. The | greatest industrial concerns In the country-coal and iron mines, loco motive works. steel mills, chemical factories, textile manufacturer, con- tractors or all sorts--all find them selves deprived of customary sources of money supply for the undertaking | of new operations, extensions of plants etc. The banks have told them that until old-time confidence is re- stored--and that means definite re- turn of normal conditions in the United States-the German business world must face the necessity of row Ing close to shore and grubbing along on slow-going minimum basis all along the line.