DESCRIBES GERMAN INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS

Mr. Calian is Professor of Industrial Management in the Graduate School of Business Administration, and is also connected in an advisory capacity with various manufacturing concerns. He has recently returned from a trip through Germany.

The Writer, in company with Mr. Ralph Wilkins, a young paper-mill chemist, spent about two year, weeks in Germany. In January of this year, looking up certain processes and machinery used in paper manufacture, in the interest of a large eastern pulp and paper mill. It has been suggested that some notes on the conditions observed might to be of interest.

A plea of confession and avoidance must be entered at the beginning, to the effect that outside the paper industry we have nothing to contribute beyond a few snap-shots of the surface of German life at this time. The time was short and well-filled, and out general impressions were of necessity wholly superficial.

German and Belgian visas were obtained without difficulty in Paris, and we took' a morning train for Berlin via Cologne. The battle areas along the line, which passes through Complegne, Noyon, La Fere and St. Quentin, showed much less recovery than we had expected. It may be said here that the devastated, areas from Rheims along the Chemin des Dames, which my associate visited later, were in much the condition in which the war left them. These areas have been written about so often that any further description could not add anything of value. The picture itself brought home a most poignant realization of the indomitable courage and gallantry with which France upheld our common cause, and of the awful sacrifices that she made in the struggle of our sort of civilization against one quite alien to our ideals.

Through Belgium the line followed the route of the original German advance, through Namur and Liege; from the train war here, but the very names of the town stir the imagination.

Railway Service Good

Our tickets read only to Cologne, and we changed trains here and arranged for a sleeper from Dusseldorf. The station was dirtier than in pre-war times, and the train was late enough to make us feel at home. Service was good, and an English-speaking porter who helped us to start our three trunks of paper samples through in bond, tried to return half the well earned tip that we gave him. The first-class car that we entered here was clean, and newly and attractively upholstered, both seat-coverings and curtains being of paper fabric, as in nearly all the cars in Germany. To avoid a wrong impression one should say that the returning of tips or their refusal was not found to be a habit, despite the stringent national anti-tipping law; and that most of the cars had dingy and well worn paper-cloth upholstery, and were not very well cleaned. The Sleeper which we were fortunate enough to get at Dusseldorf had somewhat this dingy appearance, but the sheets and blankets and a good many applicants did not get berths; the train crew was friendly and courteous, and handled patiently the loud and persistent complaints of some of the unlucky ones. The locomotives that we saw here and elsewhere in Germany were remarkably well groomed, and seemed in excellent condition. The permanent way appeared from the ridding of the train, and from a few casual inspections to be in good shape. Of course we did not use the German dining service on this night journey, but it may be said that while the matter of trains is under discussion, that the food served there was plentiful and good, and that the requirement for bread-cards was the only reminder of abnormal conditions. Whether the prices should be called high or low depended as elsewhere upon whether one thought in the old value of marks or in dollars. A certain excellent luncheon on the train cost us fifty-two marks each,--the equivalent of seventy-eight cents at exchange then current. Similarly with railway fares: The first class fare from Cologne to Berlin was 330 marks,--or $4.45; from Berlin to Stettin, 85 marks, or $1.28; and from Berlin to Frankfurt including sleeper, or, 191.60 marks, or $2.87. The fare by mail-plane from Berlin to Dortmund,--a trip for which we were booked, but missed on account of fog,--was 500 marks, or $7-50.

Berlin Conditions Near Normal

At the Custom house in Berlin we found that the importation of paper is forbidden. We spent an hour in preliminaries, visited the Commissioner, who issued a permit in fifteen minutes, and on the next ensuing week day spent a further hour and forty minutes, during which two men worked continuously on examination and classification of our samples and computation of duties. Our growing alarm was assuaged when we received a bill for a dollar and eighty cents -- in marks of course.

In Berlin a superficial glance about as one left the station and rode through the streets showed fewer departures the streets showed fewer departures from normality than might have been expected. Station and streets were well filled; there were plenty of taxis waiting, duly equipped with pneumatic tires: policing was good, and shop windows were attractively dressed. The appearance and behavior of the crowds seemed perfectly ordinary. On the other hand the standard of clothing was low,--thought not as conspicuously so as we had expected; there were a good many old uniforms; there were not many private automobiles about, and many private automobiles about, and many of the taxis were a good many signs from which the words "Kaiserlich" or "Koniglich" had been erased, sometimes at a good deal of pains.

Food in Hotels Plentiful

Hotels were crowded, but we were able to get one excellent double room with bath at the Eden for two hundred marks a day--a dollar and a half apiece. There were a few remaining scars from military occupancy, and the sheets had apparently been North German Lloyd tablecloths -- otherwise appointments and condition were good. Room service was excellent, and dining room service was excellent, and dining room service approached perfection. The orchestra divided its attention between the lighter classics and "American music"--to wit, jazz,--a condition that seems to be common to France and England as well. Food at this hotel was plentiful and good, except that coffee was poor, there was very little milk and no cream, and colored goose grease in attractive pats but of villainous taste was served in place of butter. One of our business friends who owned a cow gave us some butter in a flat silver box made to be carried in the coat pocket. Sugar was short but not absent, and bread could be obtained without a card only at the hotel were one was registered.

A very good dinner at this hotel -- which is one of the-three best in Berlin--cost about a dollar and a half, and a rather pretentious one with wine about three dollars. There was little dressing for dinner at the hotels. In the restaurants of less degree the charge was much loss. Of course a dollar and a half was a hundred marks, which does not grow on every bush in Germany. German beer is poor on account of the shortage of cereals, but the bills of fare showed native wines at very low prices in terms of our money. The largest of the Berlin beer halls is partly closed and partly converted to other uses. Afternoon tea,-or chocolate,--has become an established habit, and at appropriate hours the tea rooms both at the downtown hotels and elsewhere are crowded.

Extensive Business Advertising

Store windows were attractively dressed, and the only department store visited had a most enticing line of such goods as are suitable for presents, at remarkably low prices in terms of American money. The major automobile companies bad fine window displays, but we did not see anyone in the showrooms. The North German Lloyd and Hamhurg American Companies advertised rather extensive Air-plane service, but apparently only the Berlin-Dortmund small route, and possibly one other line were in anything like regular operation.

We did not have time to go to the theatre, but understood that the attendance was full. A wide range of attractions was advertised,-Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was announced on a very large display poster; and other announcements offered Till Eulenspiegel, Lohengrin, Fledermaus, a wide variety of modern plays, including Erdgeist and Pandora's Box, of unsavory notoriety, and several Revues.

Shortage of coal is reflected in poor heating of trains below first class, and presumably in more important ways. There is some economy in lighting, but nothing startling. The high grade hotels are warm enough to be comfortable.

German Pulp Displace American

With regard to the Paper industry, we can speak only of a few mills and a few related facts. German pulp has pretty much driven American out of the French market within a short time. The one large Pulp and Newsprint mill that we visited, in Northern Germany, was running both its News machines and its total equipment--when we were there, and another large news machine was being installed. The mill was the last word in design, was a model of order and cleanliness, and was in the best Paper of condition. All the wood for the pulp and ground-wood mill came from German points. The Workmen took of their caps to the Director or Manager exactly as they used to do before the war. We were received with the utmost courtesy.

A mill building Paper- mill Machinery, situated in Central Germany, represented the old regime where the manager's house was built into the mill, and the courtyard was laid out as a garden, with walls of Southern exposure supporting wall-growth fruit trees. The Manager's office was more homelike than office-like, and we were offered light refreshments, and the Manager's automobile placed at out disposal for a forty-mile trip where railroad connections were poor. The departments of this mill that were visited were in good condition and seemed to be running on the day of our visit at or near full capacity. No one at this mill spoke English, and it may be said in general that a knowledge of English cannot be presumed to exist except at the largest plants.

At another very large mill in the same line near Cologne we did not get beyond the office, but found that the best that could be done on a machine on which we asked a proposal was nine months on account of prior orders. The chief owner of this mill, together with his brother who spoke English, spent the day with us, and took us to two writing-paper mills where their machinery could be Seen. Here also we were treated with the utmost courtesy.

In the course of a long automobile ride we a saw a very interesting system of open brown-coal workings, in the district near Hallo. This "Braunkohl" is taken from thick deposits by steam shovels, and is sent in various directions by cable ways, some of considerable length, to the plants where by-products are recovered and the carbon residue pressed into fuel briquettes. Roughly half of the coal burned in Germany is processed before being used as fuel. On this trip one of the large Haber process plants for fixation of atmospheric nitrogen was seen from the road. It was between half a mile and a mile long and had thirteen chimneys eight of which were showing smoke. There were some stagings around the newer end, but it cannot be said whether construction was going on.

We visited one of the largest dye and chemical works, where we were received with the same courtesy as in the other cases. We could not estimate the degree of activity in this plant since our visit took us only to the Laboratory. In the central and Southern German plants visited, the men gave the military salute--or occasionally no formal salute-to the manager rather than taking of their caps, but we did not see enough factories in the two sections to give any particular general value to an observation of this kind.

Refuse to Admit War Responsibility

We heard comparatively few opinions bearing on the German attitude toward the war, but these of course reflected only the views of the individuals uttering them, and there were not enough of them to warrant generalization. These particular individuals, with one exception, considered that the war was forced upon Germany by other nations; the single dissenting individual thought that the war was forced upon the German people by the German rulers for whom he expressed bitter condemnation.

As noted at the beginning, this is merely a series or superficial observations, too slight to afford a basis for any deductions or conclusions. We saw nothing that would lead us to question the validity of the various thoughtful accounts of economic and social conditions of which appropriate periodicals have recently carried a full share