Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1916 — GERMAN ANILINE DYEMAKERS FORM GIGANTIC TRUST [ARTICLE]

GERMAN ANILINE DYEMAKERS FORM GIGANTIC TRUST

Seven Concerns With an Aggregate Capitalization of $56,500,000 Are United. FIGHT TO REGAIN MARKETS Apparently In Position to Btifle Swiss Dye Industry by Withholding Coal —Allies and Neutrals Are Developing New Industries. Berne, Switzerland. —With a capital of $56,500,000 and cash deposits in New York of $50,000,000, the seven leading German aniline dye factories have organized a gigantic trust with the object of regaining German supremacy in the world markets after the war. Their plans, long and carefully prepared, include gaining eventual control of the Swiss and Dutch chemical industries, which would give Germany 90 per cent of the total output of the world. Three of the manufactories in the new trust have a capital each of $13,500,000, namely, the Baden Aniline and Soda works, the Elborfeld Color works and the Hoechst Color works. The other four members are: Leopold Cassella, capital $7,500,000; the Aniline Manufacturing company, $5,000,000; Weilerter Meer, $2,000,000 and Kalle & Co., $1,500,000. The Baden works reported net profits last year of nearly $5,000,000 and the Hoechst company of just under $4,000,000. Each paid a dividend of 20 per cent, besides adding very large sums to their reserves.

German Apprehension. The endeavors of the allies’ governments, especially England, and of the chemical industries in neutral lands, particularly Switzerland, to capture German foreign markets have aroused considerable apprehension in Germahy. It is feared that if the war lasts another year the foreign markets will have learned to get along without German products; the more so as since the beginning of the war Germany has brought out no new colors. All her highly organized and comprehensive experimental and research work in synthetical combinations, carried out by hundreds of ' chemists and experts, has stopped. The chemists are now employed in devising new gas bombs and other deadly weapons to be used against the enemy. On the other hand, the allies and neutrals have been developing their new industries, and have not only sought to discover new combinations but have also succeeded in modifying international fashions to meet their temporarily restricted capacity of production. Keenly alive to these dangers, the German manufacturers have long been preparing the organization of the combine, which includes some new features. It has been arranged that full details of every specialty hitherto made only in individual factories shall be communicated to all the rest, and the same applies to each new discovery as soon as it is made. Then too every dyestuff will be produced simultaneously in at least two works. And naturally all the other trust details, such as selling prices at home and abroad and questions of distribution and profits and dividends, will be arranged too. High Tariff Wall. Protected by very high tariffs, German manufacturers will be able to charge such prices at” home as will offset their losses in dumping goods abroad, by which they hope to stifle the new competition. That these measures will cause serious injury to the German textile trades is certain, but the textile manufacturers are not strong enough to stand up against the combine, which will have the power-

ful support of the Imperial government. At present Germany’s most Berious competitor is the Swiss Chemical industry, a very highly developed organization doing 30 per cent of the world’s trade. Since the war this Swiss business has increased considerably; hence the German manufacturers feel the necessity of taking steps to gain control of this industry. In the meantime, however, they have been doing their best to cripple their Swiss rivals by preventing them from getting coal, for which Switzerland is entirely dependent upon Germany. Through a coal monopoly sales center in Basel, the Germans blacklist competitors who are trying to make trouble for them in foreign markets. They are planning too to get control of the Dutch chemical Industry, although this is much smaller than the Swiss. If they succeed in getting the Swiss alone they will control ninetenths of the whole chemical and dye trade of the world. A $50,000,000 Fund Here. When the war broke out the German dye manufacturers owned immense stocks of goods abroad, especially in America and China. These they have since sold at fantastically high prices and deposited the proceeds chiefly in New York banks. Well-informed Swiss bankers estimate that the total of these sales, which are now consolidated in the hands of the trust, amounts to $50,000,000. This immense capital will be available for buying the vast quantities of chemical raw materials which Germany must have immediately after the war. Naturally the new trust is prepared to meet with considerable opposition, for, despite all the difficulties in communication, the Germans have contrived to keep remarkably well informed as to what is going on in other countries. Indeed, the financial and commercial market reports in their leading papers are quite as full and prompt and, accurate as in times of peace. Hence they are fully aware of the high tariff projects and all the other schemes which the allies and neutrals are proposing to offset the threatened dumping of German goods in their territories. In all branches of industry in Germany at the present time capitalists and manufacturers are busy planning

new combinations, uniting powerful Interests and commanding large financial resources. They reckon confidently on being able to produce goods at such low prices as will compel foreigners, even (heir present enemies, to buy from them. Only recently the Frankfurter Zeitung, the leading paper in Germany, declared: “We shall make such low prices as will defy competition, and everybody will be forced to buy from us just as before.” The apprehension felt In Swiss business circles of another invasion of cheap German goods Immediately after the war, and the consequent danger to Swiss commercial Interests, seems to Indicate that the German menace is not to be disregarded.