45]

[145] _Giornale del lavori pubblici._ Cf. also _Giornale
d'Italia_, August 22, 1915.

In Italy many of the German commercial houses are, so to say,
hibernating during the war. They merely altered their names and
substituted well-paid, friendly Italians for Germans, and the feat was
achieved. In this way the Kaiser's mercury mines of Abbadia, San
Salvatore and Corte Vecchia in Tuscany are being protected, and nobody
in Italy is under any misapprehension as to what is going on there.
They are nominally in the hands of Swiss.

One of the most successful manoeuvres by which the Germans have
already parried the strokes of their rivals in the economic struggle
is by crossing the frontiers and carrying on the contest in the
enemy's country. It was thus that, when Russia, by way of protecting
her own nascent textile industries, levied heavy duties on imports
from abroad, the Germans transported their plant and their workmen
across the border, built extensive works in Lodz which gradually grew
into a prosperous German city and rendered sterling services to the
Teuton invader during the present war. They intend to have recourse to
the same device as soon as hostilities have ceased. German trade
papers announced this to their readers and urged them to communicate
with the staff with a view to receiving information respecting ways
and means.

One Berlin trade journal--the most widely circulated in the German
capital--had recently a great headline entitled: "How to keep up
German Exportation after the War!" After a preamble enumerating the
difficulties that would be thrown in the way of exporters by the
Allies, the article went on thus: "For some years to come the means of
extricating ourselves from this cruel predicament will consist in
transporting the work of manufacturing or refining our merchandise to
a neutral country. We are now in a position to offer information and
advice on this head to those German manufacturers who are working for
exportation, and we shall endeavour to extend our action in the
future. We advise all those manufacturers who are desirous of
developing their business in this way to enter into relations with us
without delay."[146]

[146] _Zeitschrift des Handelsvertragsvereins_, March 30,
1915. Cf. also _La Gazette de Lausanne_ and _L'Idea
Nazionale_, December 5, 1915.

The device is simple, and has hitherto been efficacious. In
Switzerland the number of German firms is larg