I have already had occasion to speak about the coal
industry. Until now Ruhr coal has been bought at cheap
rates in the British zone and exported to other countries.
The British authorities have secured enormous profits by
acting as middlemen in these transactions. The same thing
is happening with the export of timber from the Western
zones. Hundreds of millions of dollars have Already been
earned in these operations. But this is not called repara-
tions. Actually, however, it is in no way different from
reparations, but nobody demands that an account be given
of these reparations.
Foreign banikers and industrialists are now taking yet
another advantage of the difficult position of the German
industrialists. Many plants and whole concerns are being
bought up from German industrialists cheap. American and
British capital is penetrating into German industry on a
wide scale, and without control; it is already beginning to
sway the coal, iron and steel, chemical and other industries.
The enormous profits made in this way are going to vari-
ous lucky foreigners, if one may put it so.
The longer the present stagnation of German industry
in the Western zones lasts, the easier will it be for foreign
owners to buy up German enterprises and make enormous
profits in- 'the process. But can such a state of affairs be
considered normal, and -can German industry be left any
longer in this unsightly condition?
Or take the question of credits given to the Germans,
say, by the United States and Great Britain. It has already
been said here that German indebtedness to the U.S.A.
alone amounts to 600 andllion dollars a year, and together
with Great Britain, to 700 million dollars, and these debts
continue to mount. Yet the Germans themselves are not
beintf asked whether these credits are acceptable to them on
the terms laid down by foreigners.
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