r Schulze-Gaevernitz has assured us, and conditions
have not been wholly transformed since he made his careful analysis.
He wrote:--"But especially disadvantageous is the decentralization in
respect to the sale. Here also the German manufacturer stands under
the same disadvantages with which the English had to struggle in the
'thirties. The German manufacturer still seeks his customers through
travellers and agents, and in many instances through retail sellers,
whose financial standing is often questionable, whose necessity for
credit is always certain. Hence the complaints about the bad
conditions of payment in Germany which crop up continually in the
_enquete_. The manufacturers had to wait three, four or six months,
and even twelve months and longer for payment. In reality there
existed 'termless terms,' a 'complete anarchy in the method of
payment.' ... The manufacturer cannot be at the same time commission
agent, banker, merchant and retail dealer; he needs sound customers
capable of paying. He fares best if the sale is concentrated in one
market, and 'change' prices simplify the struggle between buyer and
seller. The search for customers, foreign as well as home, and the
bearing of all possible risks of disposal, are in any case difficult
enough to necessitate the whole strength of a man. The wholesale
merchant alone is in a position to pay the manufacturer in cash or on
sure, short terms. But especially where export is in question is the
dispersal of sales an extreme impediment. The manufacturer cannot
follow the fashions in Australia and South America; the foreign buyer
cannot travel from mill to mill."

It is the want of commercial development in Germany which accounts for
the more frequent combination of weaving and spinning there than in
England. But in Germany to-day economic enterprise is flourishing, and
commercial development may confidently be looked for together with
advance in other directions. It is not many years since the typical
German cotton factory was comparatively primitive; now mills can be
exhibited which might have been erected recently in Oldham. Between
the early 'eighties and the 'nineties the expansion of the German
industry was enormous--the imports of cotton-wool rose by nearly
70%--yet the number of spinning-mills was actually reduced from 6750
to 2450, while the number of weaving-sheds fell from 56,200 to 32,750.