The Next War.

Sir William Ramsay's Opinion of Germany's Commercial Methods.

Commerce Regarded as War.

"All for Empire" Leaflets. No. 2.

Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S., one of the world's most distinguished chemists, and a former President of the British Association, in a stirring address delivered in Manchester on January 22nd, 1915, before representatives of British associations of employers and industrial concerns, pointed out that in Germany "commerce is regarded as war .... the powerful mass of the German State being projected into methods meant to kill the trade of other nations. After the war between the nations," Sir William said, "the German war with British trade will be resumed."

"Under the German State there is a trade council, the object of which is to secure and keep trade for Germany. This Council has practical control of duties, bounties and freights; its members are representative of the different commercial interests of the empire, and they act, as a role, without control from the Reichstag. . . . Let me give you a simple case of the operations of that trade council.

"Ex uno disce omnes. A certain English firm had a fairly profitable monopoly in a chemical product which it had main-" tamed for many years. It was not a patented article, but one for which the firm had discovered a good process of manufacture. About six years ago this firm found that its Liverpool custom was being transferred to German makers. On inquiry it transpired that the freight on this particular article from Hamburg to Liverpool had been lowered. The firm considered its position, and by introducing economies it found that it could still compete at a profit. A year later German manufacturers lowered the price substantially, so that the English firm could not sell without making a dead loss. It transpired that the lowering of the price was due to a heavy export bounty being paid to the German manufacturers by the German State."

"It is the bringing of the heavy machinery of State to bear on the minutiae of commerce which makes it impossible to compete with such methods. One article after another is attacked as opportunity offers; British manufacture is killed, and Germany acquires a monopoly. No trade is safe; its turn may not have come."

"At the end of this war we shall have Germans again as trade rivals; it there is a German State our German rivals will be backed by that State. They will, as they have done before, steal our inventions, use trickery and fraud to cast us from world markets, and we know now that we need not expect any bargain to be binding."

"Are you aware that no treaty, political or otherwise, with the German people, is worth the paper it is written on? That the country and its inhabitants have forfeited all claims to trust? That no one in future should make a bargain with a German, knowing that he is a dishonourable and dishonoured man?"

The "All for Empire League" has for its express object the elimination of enemy (and particularly German) trade and influence throughout the Dominion of New Zealand in particular and the Empire in general. Plank 7 of its platform is as follows:—

To aim as far as possible at the elimination of German trade within the Empire, by the adoption of an abso-

lutely prohibitive tariff and increased shipping dues on all German and present enemy vessels visiting New Zealand ports.

It further proposes under plank 9—

To make traffic in German goods impossible in New Zealand by securing definite pledges from numbers of the League that they will not purchase goods made in Ger-many or of enemy origin from any merchant or store-keeper, and that they will not knowingly deal with merchants or storekeepers who have purchased German or other enemy goods since August, 1914.

Will you not help in this most laudable and patriotic movement by becoming a member of the League and using all your influence to induce others to follow your example?