SIR ALEXANDER ROGER ON GERMANY
Sir Alexander Roger, who is head of an important group of companies manufacturing cables and telephone equipment, is devoting a large part of his speeches at the shareholders' meetings to the question of trade competition with Germany. He has an excellent claim to do so since the Automatic Tel:- phone and Electric Company, which held its meeting last Thursday, exported to no less than 62 different countries in 1938. He attributes to Germany " an amazing psychological misconception of the people she wishes to trade with. She forgets that it is not alone the quality of the goods, the technique of the manufacturer, or power politics, which induces permanent export sales. There is another intangible but indispensable quality, the element we call goodwill." For this quality, he says, Germany has " little or no regard," though he is convinced that the great manufacturing and exporting firms of Germany realise that they cannot hope to keep and extend their trade under the methods dictated to them by their rulers.
But although Sir Alexander has reached the conclusion that " an implacable trade war is being waged against us with all the resources of a powerful State seeking to impose its prin- ciples on the rest of the world," it must not be thought that he is pessimistic as to the outcome. He expressed the view that there is ample trade for Germany and for other countries. He doubts whether we are going to have a political catastrophe in 1939, and with a good order book and good prospects, he looks for even better financial results this year.
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