Foreign Parts

Sudden and drastic was the passage by the German Reichstag, last week, of a bill raising the duty on imported automobile parts from 12% ad valorem to 28%. Enacted to take effect on Jan. 15, 1928, the new measure loomed, last week, as a deadly threat to five U. S. motor manufacturers* which have recently spent $12,000,000 on assembling plants and the development of sales organizations in Germany. Officials of the threatened U. S. group said, last week, that they had had a "working agreement" with the Ministry of Commerce that no such bill would be passed; but last week Reichstag demagogs stampeded the bill through, on the grounds that "the assembling of foreign motor cars from imported parts in Germany is an evasion of the duty on imported automobiles." A further escapade by the Deputies, last week, was to pass 333 to 53 a bill increasing the salaries of Government officials which had been explicitly deplored as "extravagant" by the Agent General of Reparations, Seymour Parker Gilbert (See REPARATIONS REPORT).

* General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Hudson-Essex, Willys-Overland.