Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-12-30
DISASTER FOR
GERMAN TRADE
WAS PREDICTED
Albert BALM, Reported %
Have Committed Suicide,
Made Prediction.

Sydney, Australia, NOV. Z3.-(Cofe
respondence of the Associated Press.)
Albert BALM, general director Of
the neutrality-suspicious. Steamship
Co., who is reported to have commit
ted suicide just before the signing Of
the armistice, had predicted disaster
for the German overseas trade as an
outcome of the war. This is dis
closed by the publication here Of .
letter which Herr BALM had written
in December, 1917, apparently to DR..
Rothenau,a privy councillor at Berlin.
A copy of this letter was made public
here by J. M. Paxton, a resident OF
Sydney, who received it from a friend
in London. In it Balm declared hat
whether Germany or England was
victorious in the war the onse.
quences to German foreign trade
would be disastrous. The letter reads
in part:
"Most of what we read in the news
papers as to u preparedness for
emba :-king on brisk trade and manu-
features as soon as peace has been
concluded is, I fear. written with the
manifest intention Of heartening our
people who are VIGOROUSLY ignorant
of our actual economic conditions and
all that threatens them"
He said that the German mer-
camille marine was in "a perilous
condition." and that the bill to re-
establish and strengthen it, which at
the time of writing was before the
reichstag, would show no results for
at least five years. In that time Ger
many's great maritime competitors.
Britain and the United States and
Japan and the neutrals, Norway,
Denmark and Holland, would profit
enormously.
BALM reminded his friend that he
(Ballin) vainly begged Berlin au-
thorities not to engage in unrestricted
submarine warfare, and he continued:
you and I know that the Ameri-
cans are probably the most idealistic
nation on the earth's surface. In an
tagonizing America we have done q
disastrous thing, a thing which will
throw a cold shadow on u economic
life for a generation" The latter
part of Ballin's letter ran:
But if I am concerned about our
relations with the United States, I am
still more anxious about our relations
with Britain. I realize as never be-
fore that all the increase in our
wealth, all the success which attended
our enterprises in the year before the
war, were owing to u intercourse
with the British empire. Her home
ports, her dominions inc colonies
were freely opened to our shippers
and traders. Sometimes I wondered
at this generosity, and even called it
folly. Is it to be imagined for a mo-
ment that those old relations will re-
turn?
II am not to be supposed, dear Herr
Geheimrat (privy councilor) as say
ing one word in favor of Britain's
policy in this war. I believe that she
entered it from some base motives.
Consider what we are riskins. We
look forward to resuming u lei
trade. We build u ~proudest ex-
pectations on this. How are we to
resume it in face of an Anglo-Saxon-
dom which loathes and must loathe
u presence among them?
But we must beat England, you
say, no matter what the consequence.
I agree. All I say is that whether we
beat her or she beats us the conse-
quences will be the same-disaster to
III oversee trade if Britain SO wills it
We nay, in the event Of victory, i'm
pose all sorts Of conditions securing
us most favored nation treatment, Sc
curing us free entry into British ports
everywhere. No sane man believes,
that these conditions will help us.
with a hostile British empire,
CALLED and fretted with u military
success, raging at it's losses, hopelessly
a%lienated, how are we to procure h
raw material which this empire alone
a supply? That great empire is
self-contained, and we are not, and all
military victories and all the wild
will-o'-the-wisps about Hamburg to
Bagdad' will not help u.s."
8. Herr Balm died suddenly in Berlin
on November 8. The cause Of his
death has not been officially stated.
but it has been reported that he had
been summoned to the German army
headquarters and criticized by Cen
eral L%udendorf for opposing plans Of
the military party and that Balm
then appealed to the then German
emperor who sustained Ludendorf's
statements, and suggested that BALM
either adopt them or retire from pub
lie life. Thereafter according to re-
ports, BALM appeared to be greatly
depressed in spirit. Some reports re-
ceived in London stated that he had
connitta6 SJici6o -H.. e