STRAIN TELLING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 163, 10 June 1940, Page 8

STRAIN TELLING

SUPPLIES IN GERMANY. DRAWING ON RESERVES'. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 8. Stating that the struggle was literally one of life or death, the Minister of Economic Warfare (Dr Dalton), in a broadcast, said victory was sure, though perhaps distant. Dr Dalton explained that the object of his Ministry was to prevent the Germans obtaining from outside commodities necessary for the prosecution of the war. Dr Dalton said he did not think the Nazis had gained materially from the conquest of Denmark, Holland and Belgium, and he pointed out that these countries depended to a very large extent upon imports for their livelihood, having ot obtain from abroad both feeding stuffs for cattle and raw materials for industr3 r . Neither had the Nazis obtained much of the stocks of these countries, for they 'had mostly been destroyed before they could fall into German hands. Hitler might have obtained temporary help in certain directions, but this would not extend beyondthe present summer. The Nazis could not afford a long war. They had amassed huge stocks of necessary supplies upon which they were already drawing. When these were exhausted Germany had no chance of replenishing them and such supplies as she could get from Russia and the Balkans would not help her. For her vast expenditure of oil Germany had to rely upon domestic production and supplies from Russia and Rumania, and these latter supplies had so far proved to be smaller than had been expected. OIL DIMINISHING. “The magnificentqvork of the R.A.F. is greatly aiding me in my task, of starving Hitler of oil,” Dr Dalton added. The glow of vast conflagrations of burning oil could be seen a hundred miles away not only by the British airmen but by the German people as well. Already the strain was beginning to tell in Germany. The German workers were being sacrificed as ruthlessly as the German soldiers. Their standard of life was declining, and the cost of living rising higher and hours of work lengthening, and over all brooded the darkneing shadow of inflation.

All this was tolerated only because “it is accompanied by rosy promises of a quick victory to be followed by an orgy of unlimited plunder and prosperity and of brutal German domination over the whole world.” An immediate and total victory was necessary for Hitler, and this, Dr Dalton, concluded, he would never achieve, because in wartime “defeat” was a word unknown to British folk.