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food supplies from abroad ! Can anyone in his heart of 

 hearts really believe that in these circumstances, without 

 an increase of power, with no indemnity, and without 

 security, we could avoid Germany's ruin ? ' 



" The way, we were told, by which our enemies hope to 

 avoid such troubles was for manufacturers in Germany 

 to associate themselves, respectively, according to their 

 various departments of production. Each trade thus 

 syndicated is to prepare estimates of their future require- 

 ments of prime materials, which will be duly checked by 

 the appointed authority. A State department wnW be 

 charged with the buying abroad of the metals, wool, jute, 

 cotton, foodstuffs, hides, tanwares and the thousand 

 diversities that make up the schedule of prime materials. 

 This Ministerial department will — if according to present 

 example — constitute itself, for reasons of convenience and 

 camouflage, a joint stock company by name and external 

 appearance, ' eine juristische Person.' On the well- 

 proved pattern this juristic person, in the fraudulent legal 

 jargon, can form as many subsidiary 'companies' as may 

 be found desirable so as to disguise the fact of the scheme 

 of working being precisely a ' knock-out ' when it comes 

 in the usual way to purchase goods at auction. 



" Competition is thus charmingly eliminated whilst, for 

 instance, the unorganized British producers of wool, 

 meats, or hides and skins, mere unconnected pastoralists, 

 are left exposed. For convenience just this one illustration 

 is adduced. Up to the present it applies to producers 

 generally. And our beautiful British legal fictions lend 

 themselves admirably to the German procedure as planned. 

 It is essential to remember how a British High Court 

 decided that a German company established in England 

 for the purpose of distributing manufactures from Hanover, 

 the company and its business being owned by the Hanover 

 manufacturer, was an English company because registra- 

 tion had been allowed in England. But a still higher 

 Court put aside that contention by the dictum that a 

 practice cannot lawfully be carried on indirectly that 

 could not lawfully be carried on directly. Yet a man may 

 lawfully avoid his unlimited liability by duly forming 

 himself into a limited liability company. 



" Priority of importance need not here be considered," 

 continued the lecturer. " It is a question of preservation 

 of industry, and once that principle be recognized, nothing 

 that is produced or producible by honest human effort 

 when well remunerated is too small to provide for. A 



