Omaha daily bee., 1908-12-20
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CONTINUED from tGge One')
with the shrinkage OF ready money.
The sudden collapse of German credit
~trading-few people could afford to walt
for their -money-reacted on German ship
ping by provoking a scarcity OF freights.
With that came the failure Of the emigra-
ton traffic, on which both Bremen and
Hamburg originally built up their great
ocean The stagnation in ship
ping has formed a crisis in the iron indus
try, which has entered on the worst Of
all the business crises that now afflict
Germany.
1t has to be kept in mind that the years
Of neck and neck struggle between Ham
burg and Bremen led to the construction
Of tonnage kept up always for the crest
Of a boom in trade. but destined TO idle
ness in slack times. For the last two
years the conservative heads of busines
in Hamburg nave been warning their fell
low countrymen that their all round pros
perity was somewhat Fictitious.
Industries founded daily helped recip-
rocally to each others success to a degree
far beyond the truth. Manufacture and
had grown too vast and above
all too quick, and banking also. There was
money, but not nearly enough for the
amount Of business that was launched. The
expansion could not have been supported
by serious confidence, for it needed only
a cry of alarm from the Franklin Gazette
two years ago. you banks are xagger-
ating your credits to industry, Beware!"
for the bank shares on the Berlin Bourse
to drop several points.
The dislocRtion in business is we'll nigh
universal and IT is not of a kind that law
making by the Reichstag can restore. In
its confidence in the future the commercial
world Of Germany decided TO make all its
capital work. 1t is impossible now to go
back.
Less than any country in Europe except
England can Germany think of limiting
its requirements 70 what its soil produces.
and its racial stock is breeding faster than
the English. One has to picture the French
RENTER comfortable on the interest Of his
invested savings, all that his body wants
offered him by his fruitful soil, each citizen
getting a rather larger share OF the COM
mon goods as the sum of the population
steadily declines, and then realize that the
future of Germany means the absolute
anthithesis Of all that.
1t must carry its wares TO the end of
the earth and dispose of them for the more
and more money that it needs at home.
Whoever makes that more difficult for II
is no friend. The practical Germans prac-
teal comment on Mr.. Taft's election was
one Of regret that It destroyed the chance
of German goods entering America on a
low tariff.
In the circumstances he has 10 reconcile
himself to coping, as he has in the past,
with the tariff. Not 80 in the case of Eng
land. There are formidable signs In Ger
many which no seeing man can ignore, that
II the British Parliament adopts tariff re-
form as its economic policy and attempts
TO make the foreigner pay" Germany will
on full reflection decide to fight rather
than pay.
Two important steps Lave been taken by
England recently to the detriment Of Ger
man industry. The British radical govern
ment has put in operation its act whereby
foreigners who wish to protect a manufac
turing patent In England must work the
patent itself In England. This law strikes