The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1915-05-29
GERMANS TAKE BOOTY
WORTH MANY MILLIONS

PARIS, May 24.-Three hun
dred million dollars lost by the tex
tile industries of northern France in
raw materials and manufactured
products taken by the Germans as
booty of war-that is the estimate
given the Associated Press by an au-
thorized member of the most influen-
tial textile corporation in France
and an authority on industrial sub
jects.
What the total loss, including
damages to plant and to buildings,
may amount to, there are no indica-
tions, for many rumors of the trans
ferring of valuable machines to Ger
many have not been confirmed. The
above estimate is based on confirm
ed facts only. 1t more than bears
out the estimate of the German pub
licist, Ludwig G%ankhofer, who, after
a visit to the German front, told the
Muenchner Neueste Nachrichten
that the war booty sent from North
ern France to Germany in the form
of cereals, sugar, metals, wool, leath-
er, etc., amounted to $500, 900, 900
during the first six months of the
war. 1t is supposed that his figures
were based on the requisition price
said to be very inferior to the mar
ket value. On the latter basis the
actual total would be far in excess
of the German figures; the estimate
for the textile industries alone would
indicate.
1t is known that the Germans took
nearly all the raw material and fin
ished goods in the great wooden man
ufacturing centers of lie Coteau,
Roubaix and Tourcoing, where
America buys heavily of the finer
wooden fabrics. They also emptied
the linen factories with the excep-
ton of those at Armentieres, where
they were driven back too soon, and
at Lille, where they have recently
begun to requisition these products.
The territory occupied by the Ger
mans contains more then so per cent
of the wooden and linen industries of
France; the consequence is a short
age of all these products. The army
is seeking hundreds of thousands of
yards of canvas for tents that these
industries are unable to supply.
Cotton, tried as a substitute, proved
unsatisfactory.
1.-THE financial problem resulting
from this state of things" according
to this authority, will require most
serious study after the war. A com
mercial and industrial activity such
as we have never seen will be wit
messed in France, but the setting in
motion again the industrial machine
will be attended with great difficult
ties. One manufacturer in the occu-
pied territory has lost raw material
and finished goods to the value of
five to ten million francs. The banks
had advanced him a half million
francs. The security for that ad-
vance is gone. That man will say
after the war: 4 am not played out.
I want to put my industry on it's
feet again. but where will he find
the means since he has already hang
ing owe him a debt of half a million
francs and the goods that secured it
are in Germany? 1t is a serious
problem. but it will be solved.
Another great difficulty is in the
restoration of our plants, the replac-
ing of our machines. Under exist
ing conditions it seems likely that it
will take two years for machine con-
%structors to furnish what We shall
require. Perhaps we shall have to
call upon the American ingenuity to
help us in working out the difficult
problems, but they will be solved, for
never was the spirit of our manufac-
turers and workers so strong as to-
day