OCR Text |
Show cent of fertilizing value, as compared with 27 per cent for the best English rock. These islands were seized by the British Brit-ish early in the war. and they will not be returned to Germany, since there is peculiar need for this form of fertilizer in Australia and New Zealand. It will be very difficult for any of the German Ger-man producers or manufacturers, even though backed to the fullest extent by the government at Berlin, to sell anything any-thing except at very low prices, and tariff walls will undoubtedly be erected against them in all countries where they enter into competition with home industries. indus-tries. The United States has been getting get-ting along without importing drugs, dyes and chemicals from Germany for a long timo. We have, likewise, existed without a supply of goods manufactured manufac-tured in the Rhine cities and other German Ger-man towns. We shall doubtless continue con-tinue to do so in the years to come. WHERE HUNS LOSE. The war has resulted in the development devel-opment of the potash industry all over the world and the breaking of the German Ger-man monopoly. The newspapers of Holland have recently investigated the subject and have arrived at the conclusion conclu-sion that the German producers will have to face severe competition, to say the least. Potash deposits have been discovered in Catalonia; it will probably prob-ably be mined in The Netherlands in the concession field of Winterswijk. and the United States is developing a potash pot-ash industry and will no longer find it necessary to payhe high prices charged before the outbreak of hosttlities. Under Un-der the stress of competition the Ger- man mines will probably combine so i that only one out of four or five mines will remain in operation. But the closed mines will still require considerable sums for the upkeep of the buildings and machinery: water must be pumped out to keep the mines dry, as it might otherwise flood the neighboring neighbor-ing mines. The earnings of one mine will have to be distributed among the owners of four or five mines and, if prices should fall, the shareholders will "'tare to be contented with meager dividends. divi-dends. The German mines charge their foreign customers higher prices than the domestic consumers pay, and. owing to the enormous sums invested, high prices of potash are a vital condition for the existence of -German potash industry. Hence the German interests are bound to keep the prices high and will not lower them save in rase of extreme necessity. Not many years ago the German government got in behind the potash industry and caused (be breaking break-ing of contracts with American importers, import-ers, and there was no recourse, save ! that, through the intercession of the authorities at Washington, some potash was allowed to come" to this country at. advanced prices. But, when Germany finally succeeds in obtaining peace, she will find her market gone to some extent, and she will be confronted with ompetitors in many parts of the world. One of The Tribune's valued ex i i hanges recently called attention to the I fact that. Germany lost a source of : phosphates, which are as necessary as potash in agriculture, when Pleasant isfand and Ocean island, situated mid i way between the Marshall and Solomon j groups in the Pacific ocean, were taken ' away from her. The phosphate deposits of those islands arc said to bo the most nluable of their kind in the world. The islands are of coral formation, but a laver of phosphate rock forty feet in depth is said to cover them, the quan-lily quan-lily of phosphate available being estimated esti-mated at 800,000 tons, ml in fertili' ng qnslitv rivaling the famou nitrate r i r. M of C'blla !' possesses HI per |