The German as Competitor
In view of the considerable amount of nonsense that has been talked on the subject, by interested persons and others, the state- ments made by the Foreign Secretary and the President of the Board of Trade on Wednesday regarding German competition in export markets were particularly opportune. A distinction must, of course, be drawn between- fair and unfair competition, but for the tendency to regard competition as unfair simply because it is successful there is nothing to be said. That there will be com- petition, and that much of it will be successful, is inevitable. German production is slowly working back towards its pre-war level (it has not got beyond about 6o per cent, of it yet) and at the same time the British and American Governments have laid it down firmly and rightly that German imports shall be paid for by German exports, not by subsidies from British and American tax- payers. That you cannot have recovery without competition is manifest, but it is, of course, necessary that the competition shall be fair, in the sense of not being stimulated by rebates, concealed subsidies or any such device. The new Occupation Statute will reserve power to the Occupying Powers to deal with that kind of abuse. Mr. Wilson, however, did well to explain that some apparently unfair competition was a temporary legacy from the old currency regime. Two examples are the People's Car, and some rather serious underselling of Sheffield exporters in the Indian market. Both of these handicaps to British manufacturers are hang- overs from the time when the German mark exchanged for 17 American cents. Now that the exchange figure for the new Deutsche- mark is 30 cents business is placed on a fair basis, except so far as concerns the remainder of some still -unfulfilled contracts. The assurance that the situation will be closely watched was necessary, but British exporters must reconcile themselves to the fact that they can no more take objection to fair German competition than to fair French or fair Belgian competition. All may be un- welcome, but all are inevitable.
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