Peacetime Axis

On Manhattan's Fifth Avenue recently, an odd-looking, snub-nosed little car drew some mildly curious stares. Few of the onlookers realized that it was a postwar model of the Volkswagen, the car which Hitler once promised to put in every German garage. With an air-cooled rear engine, and a luggage compartment under the hood, it was the first of 600 which Germany is shipping to the U.S. to sell at $1,280 to $1,997. The Volkswagen's appearance was the latest example of a new business phenomenon: the growing revival of export trade in both Germany and Japan. Two weeks ago, the South African government ordered 100 steam locomotives from Krupp of Essen, who offered a lower bid and swifter delivery than any one of a score of U.S., British and other competing firms. Rosenthal china and Leica cameras are once again in the world's markets. A British toy manufacturer complained that the Germans are undercutting his prices on teddy bears and white rabbits in Cyprus, offering stiff competition in Canada and Africa.

In 1936 the areas which now make up West Germany exported $2.4 billion worth of goods; today West Germany, despite the problems of partition, is exporting about $150 million monthly and the total has been rising by about $10 million each month. Nearly two-thirds of these exports go to Western Europe, but Germany has also signed trade agreements calling for an exchange of $725 million worth of goods with eight South American nations. Germany's biggest recent export boom has been in steel. Though its production is limited by Allied authorities, Germany is trying to meet foreign orders which totaled 250,000 tons in July's first three weeks. German exporters are planning a new assault on the U.S. market. At Chicago's International Trade Fair next week, more than 200 West German products will be on display.

Japan is driving just as hard to recapture her markets. Japanese cotton and rayon yarn are pouring into India; finished fabrics, cutlery and cheap bicycles into East Asia; toys and knickknacks into the U.S. In recent months, Japan has taken contracts for hydroelectric generators and dockside cranes away from the British in both India and Formosa. It is already nudging into first place in the world's exports of cotton cloth; her sales so far this year indicate a 1950 market of 1,000,000,000 yards. Occupation authori ties estimate that Japan will have to sell more than $1 billion worth of goods to be self-sustaining; her estimated 1950 exports of $570 million will pass the halfway mark.

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