GERMAN METHODS IN COMMERCE.*
By Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY, F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D., &c.

It has not been generally known that in commerce, as in war, the methods employed by Germany have been completely organised for many years. Instead of looking on commerce as an arrangement for mutual benefit, the German nation has regarded it as a war. And, just as in the present war, all methods of attack are regarded by the military advisers of Germany as legitimate, so we are slowly awaking to the knowledge that German commercial and industrial methods have for years been aggressive. The war in which we are now engaged is, indeed, a war for the liberation of nations from commercial and industrial brutality, as well as for their deliverance from an attempted enslavement to German "Kultur," as exemplified by the practices of their army.

At the annual meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry in 1903, I pointed out that the German military organisation had its counterpart in their commercial organisation; that there exists an Imperial Council whose proceedings are kept quiet, but which takes into consideration all obtainable statistics, and as far as possible legislates, or endeavours to legislate, on the basis of these statistics. Where fiscal duties are found to be required, such a council puts them on; where there is an advantage in taking them off, they are removed. Where cheap transit is possible they give it; for the railways are the property of the State. I then said: "Is it to be expected that any country can fight such a combination as that without adopting, at all events, something of their methods, or without studying their methods, and without combining together, if not to imitate them, at least to thwart them? There is a military campaign against us, and we must

defend ourselves."

The competition in the colour trade, for instance, has almost prohibited the manufacture of dyes in England. In Germany the management is in the hands of well-trained men, who, aided by an efficient staff of engineers and chemists, are continually engaged on the problems of utilising any discovery made in their own laboratories or elsewhere, and making it commercial, whether by securing cheap raw material, cheapening the process of manufac ture, or creating a public demand for the object to be manufactured. Agencies are maintained all over the world whereby the article is introduced to the notice of foreign purchasers; and an extensive credit system is encouraged. All this is legitimate; but the maintenance of a trained legal staff, not merely to advise as to the validity of patents, but to advise whether the infringement of

* Read at the Institute of Industry and Commerce,

another's patent is likely to be successful, and whether it may not be possible, by infringing a patent, so to saddle an opponent with legal expenses as to break his competi individuals lies at the bottom of all trade; unfair competition, is not easily defensible. Fair competition between tion, backed by all the resources of the State, is what we have had to face with Germany.

We have recently had brought to our notice German methods applied to the shipping industry, and the Australians have been pointing out that the control of the "base metal market" is almost entirely in German hands.

It is necessary to go further; just as the German State has shown itself to be no respecter of treaties, just as the leaders of the German Army have revealed themselves as breakers of every humane law, treacherous and so it is foolish not to be warned that the German nation as a whole is completely unworthy of trust; that commercial agreements are regarded by members of that nation as binding only so long as some advantage is to be gained by keeping to them, and that dishonesty is excusable if only it appears to lead to German prosperity. For there is a sort of debased patriotism in the average German mind"Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt," no matter how the supremacy of "Deutschland " is secured.

deceitful, so long as they think they can gain their ends,

We were shocked at the beginning of the war by the disregard towards treaties displayed by our opponents; we were amazed at the treatment of Belgian non-combatants; and we are slowly realising that every trick, from firing on the Red Cross to the false display of the white flag of surrender, is made use of by the enemy, and not, be it observed, by individual groups of our opponents, but by command from high quarters. We are slowly and incredulously awakening to the knowledge that German commercial tricks are on a par with their tricks in war; that the whole nation is infected by the microbe of dishonour and dishonesty.

Of course there are honest men among our opponents; from time to time we read of kind acts to our wounded; and from a lifelong experience of Germany and the Germans I have no hesitation in stating there are Germans as kindly, as honest, and as upright as there are among ourselves, the French, the Americans, and among the inhabitants of all other nations. That is not the point. What we have to face is a nation organised for a policy of dishonesty, and a nation which, as a nation, approves of of dishonesty is likely to be a successful one, and it has that policy. Moreover, this nation believes that the policy the will, and believed itself to have the power, to enforce this policy on the whole world. Conscientious Germans