The Institute at Aix, although its ultimate object is mainly economic, leaves business methods and matters of immediate economic concern to other agencies. Before the war there flourished already in Germany a League for Argentina and one for Brazil. In 1915 these two Associations combined in order to form a German Economic League for South and Central America. A prospectus was issued and a meeting was held in Berlin under the presidency of Herr Dernburg, who spoke of the coming economic struggle and pointed out that German trade, except in the electrical industry, was not supported by large capital investments such as their rivals possessed. The dependence of South America on other industrial nations, owing to want of coal and iron, would facilitate German investment, to supply this defect. Germans had failed to make friends through not understanding the psychology of South Americans. German strength and practical energy must avoid arrogant pedagogic ways and must make their way through a tactful and sympathetic propaganda.
At this meeting the league was inaugurated with 120 members. Very soon it numbered 1000. Among the associations which figure as members are the German Industrialist League, the German Mercantile League, the Berlin Chamber of Commerce, the South German Export League, the League for Germanism abroad, the Society for German Art abroad. The three great banks, known in Germany as the three D.'s, are members, so also the great Shipping Companies; also newspaper and publishing firms; also many of the great industrial syndicates. A notable feature in the work of the league is the maintenance of a club in Berlin where business men and other travellers from South America are welcomed. A great point is made of this work of personal cultivation. The object is to make by hospitable attentions a Germanophil convert of every Latin-American visitor to Berlin and send him back across the Atlantic a missionary for German culture and German business. But the principal aim of the league is to unite all Germans who have any business interests in any part of Latin America, so as to pool together their knowledge, their resources, and their efforts. In this economic war the Germans move, as it were, in mass formation. Branches of the league were speedily established in every one of the twenty-one American republics, and these branches co-operate actively with the parent society at home in the furtherance of German influence and economic advantage.