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Show GERMANY'S MISTAKE. Commercial measures to lie taken by derma ny after the war were discusseil in the reiehstar the other day and Herr Oothier, a proresivist, declared that the Germans need not fear American competition, although Americans have reaped immense profits from the European Euro-pean conflict. Then he went on to say that the merchants and manufacturers nf this country liavo made no elf oris to capture international commerce in respect to ordinary merchandise, restricting re-stricting themselves to the more profitable profit-able manufacture of war material. Ameritan exports of merchandise have decreased to a considerable extent, he declared. The statement is only partly true. While some of the manufacturers have confined themselves strictly to the production pro-duction of war material at o.xcessive prices, others have entered the foreign field with their products. If our overseas over-seas trade is not as large as it should be under the circumstances, it is not entirely due to the munitions business or lacli of enterprise, but because vessels ves-sels cannot be had in which to ship' our products. Before the war we used to sell many millions of dollars '' w'orth of goods in Germany, as well as purchase large quantities in that country. The blockade prevented such trade and lowered both our export and import totals. Then, again, the war upset the whole world, and the, neutral nations, many of them financially dominated by the leading lead-ing belligerent countries, were unable to buy on account of lack of both cash and credit. If Herr Got'nier were to look up the reports, he. would find that in many of these countries the United States has greatly increased her trade and that if we had the necessary ships we could easily double the figures. According Ac-cording to facts brought out in debate in the reichstag, Germany will be short of merchant tonnage at the end of the war, and the imperial' government is even now preparing to overcome the difficulty by building more vessels. This shows commendable enterprise upon the part of the Germans, but the United States is also moving in the same direction, and it may be that ffc shall soon be independent of foreign shipping concerns. The Germans are making a sad mistake if they imagine conditions will be the same after the war as before in this respect. The shipyards in this country are working at capacity and it seems reasonably certain cer-tain that the government will engage in the shipping business for the next five years. Of course, the Germans vrill be able to regain some of their lost trade, particularly par-ticularly in those countries where they have made heavy investments in industrial in-dustrial enterprises and in wlHeh they long ago established branch banks. But conditions have changed autl much American capital has gone into these same countries, and we, too, have banking bank-ing facilities of our own in many parts of the world. Moreover, all the loose capital in existence is now in possession of the people of the United States, and foreign nations, unless they are able to raise still more money by domestic do-mestic loans, will be compelled to borrow bor-row iu onr market. There is still another important factor in the foreign trade situation as it will exist at the close of the war. There will be some prejudice against Germany and the German manufacturers manufac-turers in the entente countries -and goods made 'along the "Rhine will be handicapped to a great extenty'Hussia, for instance, has been in the habit of importing a large share of the drugs used in Muscovy from Germany, Austria Aus-tria and Belgium. Xow the Russian government has issued an appeal to the American manufacturers of chemical and pharmaceutical products to supply the demand for these commodities. In addition, a reqv.est has bten made lor American sales agents to establish direct di-rect trade relations between Iiussia and the United States. This trade cannot be regained by Germany Ger-many for a generation, at least, and it is uite . possible it lias been lost forever. for-ever. Once direct trade relations between be-tween Kussia and the United States are established, the bonds will be hard to break unless the opportunity is deliberately de-liberately thrown over by the various industrial enterprises iu this country. But we must give the Germans credit for planning ahead and preparing themselves them-selves for a desperate battle for the trade of the world, even as they prepared pre-pared themselves for' the desperate struggle now in progress in Europe, and one cannot help but think that both the government and people of this country should also bo prepared for any and all commercial eventualities, to say nothing of preparedness in a military mili-tary sense. Great Britain and France Great Britain especially will be ready for the trade war when it comes and the British have already advanced their lines in anticipation of the conflict. Her advantage will be that she has a large share of the merchant tonnage at her command and will not be forced to depend upon foreign nations for transportation of her merchandise be-vond be-vond the seas. As matters now stand, the United States has several points of vantage, and if we lose out it will be entirely our own fault. |