West Germany's government took another stride toward making good on Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard's belief that a free-enterprising government should not be in big business. On public sale fortnight ago went a sizable block of stock in one of the 300 nationalized companies inherited by the government after World War II: 300,000 shares of the big (1958 sales estimate: $178 million) Preussag mining combine, whose activities range from coal mining to oil refining. The government took the step with some misgivings: a 1958 poll seemed to indicate that 40% of all Germans had little knowledge of stock, and presumably little...
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