OCR Text |
Show German Finances and Trade. Germany is now next to France in the weight of debt she is toiling under, and many a wise man and journal is deploring her condition. But Germany does not need any pity. She has made most of her debt through buying up her railroads and creating "her magnificent merchant marine. If the railroads do not pay her a better interest than her bankers charge for money, she can easily unload them, and because of her merchant mer-chant marine and her superb manufactured goods she has taken second place in foreign trade and is crowding Great Britain sharply in all disputed dis-puted markets. In the meantime she has added hundreds of thousands to the men she can give employment to, and with her new navy she occupies oc-cupies the commanding place in Europe. All she needs now is an extended area, and we think she will have that in the next decade. In her ocean-carrying business she has no present rival to fear except Japan, and Japan cannot interfere with her except along the coast of Eastern Asia and the islands of the Pacific. It looks to us as though her progress in manufactures and foreign trade for the past quarter of a century has no equal among the nations. It began on the receipt of tho indemnity from Franco, and that did not amount to more than the United States pays to foreign ship owners every ten years. One would think that our country would want to keep thai money at home. |