“The continuous watch which we have kept on the legal structure of our sales system abroad, and the necessity — in view of political tensions — of paying special attention to the protection of our interests in case of a conflict with other powers, have convinced us that even the structure did no longer offer the necessary protection in these countries which were especially exposed to danger, among them particularly the British Empire.

“For these reasons we have come to the conclusion that real protection of our foreign sales companies against the danger of sequestration in wartime can only be obtained by our renouncing all legal ties of a direct or indirect nature between the stockholders and ourselves — which at present give us the right of access to the stocks of our sales companies — and replacing these legal relations by transferring the right of access to these assets to such neutral agencies as by virtue of their personal connections with us of many years standing, in some cases even covering decades, will give us the absolute guarantee that in spite of their complete independence and neutrality they will never dispose of these assets otherwise than in a manner entirely in accordance with our interests. This guarantee continues to exist even in the case of unforeseen technical or political complications rendering a discussion with us temporarily impossible, a discussion which in view of our friendly relations, would normally be a matter of course. The experiences we made during the war have made it much easier for us to decide on this step. As an example, for the fact that the only effective protection of our interests lies in the personal trustworthiness of our business friends abroad and not in legal obligations whatsoever, we shall only quote the following incident:

“After the entry of the United States into the World War, all the assets of our constituent companies in the United States were sequestrated and were, in the majority of cases, sold to competitors by the American authorities; only this action provided the basis for the development of the American chemical industry of today. This was the situation when the representative of the Hoechster Farbwerke, General M. A. Metz, while fully observing his duties as an American citizen, staked his entire private property — without being asked to and without any legal obligation — in order to buy