Boycott Front Line

Good news for Jews came last week from the front lines of their boycott war against Nazi Germany. Noting "consumer resistance to goods of German origin," Manhattan's R. H. Macy & Co. announced that in the past six months their German orders had declined 98%. Hence, the biggest department store in the U. S. was closing its Berlin purchasing office, moving to Prague. Few days later Bernard F. Gimbel announced: "There now being practically no demand for German merchandise Gimbel Brothers, Inc. have discontinued buying German goods." Other big Manhattan department stores which have closed their Berlin offices or otherwise stopped buying German goods include Lord & Taylor, which led off the boycott last autumn, Bloomingdale Brothers, Best & Co. and Hearn.

Jews felt that their boycott was indeed deadly when they read last week Germany's export and import totals for February. In February, 1933. Germany had had a favorable trade balance of about 30,000.000 marks. Last month it had an unfavorable trade balance of 34.600.000 marks. Examined more closely, however, the figures changed color completely. Reason for the deficit was a 10% decline in German export prices. Actually, figured in quantities, German exports for February, 1934 were well above those for February, 1933, before the boycott began. Furthermore, the high import total was explained by the fact that the Nazi leaders have lately prodded German businessmen to step up production, buy more raw materials like cotton, copper and wool.

Unimpressed by boycotts, irascible Hjalmar Schacht, the Reichsbank's president, last week gave the members of

Berlin's American Chamber of Commerce a little cold turkey with their banquet chicken. After a long, oft-told analysis of Germany's uncomfortable position in international finance, he slipped out two new threats. Much of Germany's commercial borrowings, he said, have gone not into German business, but directly to pay reparations. "The entire conglomeration of political obligations," he declared, "weighs like a mountain on international trade." On the theory that all Germany's outstanding debts are political, President Schacht concluded that "an attempt must be made to reach an agreement," i. e. to cancel them all or in part.

Even taller talk followed: "I can even envisage the necessity of taking measures for the restrictions of imports. Whether Germany is regarded in the outside world with sympathy or antipathy is wholly immaterial in comparison with the fact that the abstention of 66.000,000 first-class consumers from the world's markets would spell disaster to world economy."

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