The Washington herald., 1921-01-10
PLAN
TO ABANDON HER
DYES HAS JOKER
Let-up on Coal Tar Trade
! Would Benefit Her
Industry.
BY WYTHE WILLIAMS.

Special Cable Dispatch to
The Washington Herald.
PARIS, Jan. 9.-Germany has pro-
posed chemical disarmament
Into the whirligig of. European
emotions following the latest gen.
eral disarmament and reparations
breakdown, she has slipped a cog
that she perhaps counts upon event
ually to complete the stripping of
the entente gears. Her proposals
to abandon the industry which sup
piled high explosives and poison
gasses and enabled her to wage war
as long as she did, cover another
suggestion that it is evidently hoped
will be found dull and colorless,
but which contains both dynamite
and color in plenty. This is a plan
to let up on the German coal tar
chemical industry so that Germany
may regain her world market in
dyes
So, while the allied chancelleries
are in d turmoil, while the British
press is agitated on the subject of
the American proposal for a naval
holiday. while the new Red threats
bringing military chiefs of those
countries to Parts to seek the ad-
vice of their Uncle" Ferdinand
Foch; with the league of nations
and its attendant sunlight again
obscured, the supreme council pre-
pares to turn the spotlight on itself
in Paris instead of in a Riviera
conclaVe.
Both Have Same Base.
While Germany has been inform
ing the reparations commission that
she could not fulfill many engage
ments, she also has been telling
them many things on the subject
of her dyes. The proposal TO do
away with the manufacture of
deadly chemicals and poison gasses
might find favor from a strictly
military standpoint were it not
pointed out that 1t is quite fmpos-
sible-so long as Germany goes on
making dyes. For it all comes from
the same base-Coal tar-whiCh,
developed through a certain number
of processes. becomes a certain kind
of dye, or, IL developed only a few
points further, becomes high eX-
plosive or poison gas. 1t was coal
tar that alone enabled Germany to
fight so long.
There is evidence in Paris. where
a large force Of dye experts now
are gathered to help the reparations
commission, that the German dye at
tack is to be centered most vigor-
ously upon the United States mar
ket. France has a tariff law that en-
ables her TO build up her dye indus
try uRmolested. England has a new
law operative January Is that ex-
cludes dyes such as she produces
and admits those she does not pro-
duce, but which her consumers need.
Japan is taking steps to protect her
chemical industry. The United States
lis the only important nation ac-
tually at the mercy of German
chemists. For the moment America
is protected by the War Trade Board
but this barrier will fall when she
ends the technical state OF war with
Germany.
Refuse to Produce Dyes.
German dye manufacturers, real
izing this. are causing the repara-
tiOns commission much trouble by
refusing to produce except under
pressure the dyes most needed in the
United States. They are willing to
offer large quantities of dyes in
competition with the output of the
new American dye industry, but still
are making excuses for failure to
produce noncompetitive dyes. Thus
they hope to encourage consumers
to demand an open market. Also, in
this manner with the experience of
her fifty years world monopoly of
dye manufacture against five years
of American experience, Germany
hopes to throttle the American In
dustry and leave America helpless
in this respect, should there be an
other war.
German production of dyes is so
closely allied with her production
of munitions that a separation rs
impossible. Destruction of one
would mean the destruction of both.
Students of the German proposals
now in Paris consider that America
is the last hope the German manu-
facturers have and they will not
give up as long as America does not
protect its dye industry by a law
similar to that of Great Britain
They see. further, that real chemical
can be accomplished
only by breaking Germany's mono
oily of the dye industry and en-
cOuraging the building up of a sim
liar industry in all the countries of
the entente, and especially in the
United States.
Copyright, 1891, Public Ledger Co..