The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1918. THE ECONOMIC WEAPON.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 September 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1918. THE ECONOMIC WEAPON.

The German economists aiul commercial leaders may well discuss with increasing anxiety the raw material blockade. They j realise now that the mailed fist lias lost its bargaining powers —let us hope for ' ever —and that the Allies, whose ability ' and resource they always failed to recognise, have replaced all the specialities of w%ich the Huns in their overweaning conceit believed they had a monopoly. They are already talking of forming a new Asian policy, based on a coalition of Germany, Russia, Persia, China and Japan, with a view to smashing Britain's economic power by invasion of her markets. It is all so fatuous, yet so characteristically German. Never have they showed any ability to appreciate the view-point of other people, which largely accounts for their starting the present war, which anybody with any knowledge of human nature must have known would have led to the embroilment of all the big nations of the world, and also accounts for the signal failure of their colonisation policy and Mieir failure to; ' assimilate the conquer people now forming parts of Germany. Contrast their unmitigated failure with tiie sue-;

cess of the Brilibli. Britain respects the rights and feelings of those that come

under lior sway, and adapts herself to their conditions, improving them whereever possible, and always extending the helping hand. The result is that on the first sign of trouble they rush to her aid. It is u glorious tribute to her success, her justice, her toleration. Boers, but a few years ago our foes, take their stand alongside their faster mother. There is no compulsion, no special invitation to do so. It is but a, display of gratitude. As with the Boers so with the Indians of all creeds and ranks; with tiie island races, with the Malays, It is a spectacle the significance of which cannot be lost on the world, and will be regarded in time to come by historians as not the lease remarkable feature of this world war. Germany has been responsible for the display of this loyalty and patriotism; she has rendered the Empire the very great service of welding the various races and peoples of the Empire into one united whole, and they will have reason, we believe, not to forgot it in the : future, for between them the nations forming the British Empire control much of the world's raw materials, which are a vital necessity to German industry. They will take good caro that the materials will not, as in pre-waT days, go to Germany to enable her to again rebuild her war machine. The economio situation is the most important matter of all, as General Smuts reminded us not so long ago, and no one knows this better than the directing minds amongst the enemy, which accounts for their present apprehension. Tho operation of economio factors is as gradual and invisible as that of armed force is rapid and resounding. The economic situation has been described by one authority as "Tho Central Powers aro being' besieged by practically the entire world and they have no means at their disposal for bringing the siege to an end." An important piece of evidence in support of fclus statement is the observation of Dr. W. Rathenau, chairman of one of the-leading German industrial enterprises, and in close touch with governing circles in Germany.' He said:—-

"On tho fourth of 'August of last year, when Englajid declared war, a terrible and unprecedented thing happened—our country became a besieged fortress. Closed in by land and sea, it was thrown upon its own resources, and a prospect of war opened out before us boundless in time and expense, in danger and sacrifice. Three days after the declaration of war 1 could bear the uncertainty as to our position 110 longer I asked for an interview with the head of the Central War Department, Colonel Schcuch, and was kindly received by him on the evening of August Bth. I explained to him that our country could presumably only be provided for a limited number of months with the indispensable materials for carrying on war. His estimate as to the duration of the war -was as considerable as nune, so I had to ask him the question: 'What has been done, what can bo done, to avert the danger of the throttling of Gertnany?' Very little had been done. But a great deal was to be done, for interest had been awakened. AVhen I returned home, anxious and full of foreboding, I found a telegram from the War Minister, Von Falkerfhayn, inviting me to ail interview next morning." j

The result of that interview, Dr. Rathenau goes on to tell us, was the organisation of £ Department for tho securing and controlling of raw material supplies; and, thanks to this orgamstion and to wholesale requisitions at homo and in tho occupied territories, Germany has been able to "make both ends meet" in the military sphere up to tho present time—at the expense of the civilian population. But tho supplies thu3 obtained and tyisbanded are not a widow's cruse. They cannot be magically renewed; and all the recent evidence goes to show that it is those who are nearest | the centre of things whe are most anxious about the situation. A second piece of evidence is that of Dr. Heinrich Tudor, of Leipzig, an economist, who mentions incidentally that he has been at work at the Baw Materials Department of the German War Office on an inventory of the available supplies of iron ore, copper, wolfram, and nickel. He contributed an article to the July-August, 1917, number of Weltwirtschaft, the organ of the German Association for Promoting Foreign Trade, in the course of which he makes the following admission:—

"We must face the fact that our apprehensions about shortage of raw material aro well founded, both as regards our manufactures and our military requirements. We must realise that we aro now living not only on the remains of our slocks of raw material, but even in large part on shoddy or resurrected materials, neither of these sources of supply can last for ever, and both will be practically exhausted at tho end of tho war"

Dr. Pudor does not expressly say that the war will end when, or because, the supplies in question are exhausted; ho merely indicates to tho German reader that, when the war happens to end, the cupboard will bo bare, but the inference is obvious. Such a statement, coming from such a somve, is sufficient in itself to explain the eagerness, not of the German people—for that may be attributed to other causes —but of the German military authorities to "extort" a speedy peace.

sind the German War Office official shows I liow the circumstances attending Great Britain's entry into the war—not itself outside their calculations—caused them (o revise their estimate and reckon on the possibility of a long war. We know from other sources that the consumption of material in the early days of t'li e war was so great as to lead to a munitions shortage in Germany long hefore our own crisis in May, 1915. No j impartial student of the war expects Germany to ho starved out. That would not he an effective way of winning the war. Wo want to defeat her at her own game—the game of war --and ensure for all time the peace of the world. But it is not in the sphere of foodstuffs that the pressure is most severe. It is the deficiency of raw materials of which the German authorities live in most dread. Germany built lip hw economic life on a foundation of imported raw material. Endowed hy nature witli comparatively limited natural resources, of which coal, iron and potash are the chief, she owed her prosperity to the industry and technical ability of her people iu working up imported raw" materials into manufactured articles. Of the total German imports in 1913, 5S per cent consisted of industrial raw materials and semi-manufac-tured articles. Those raw materials are vital not only to the maintenance of her civilian population in a civilised condition of life, but also to the upkeep of her military establishment. Foremost on the list come the fabrics, cotton, wool, silk, flax, hemp and jute. leather, furs and rubber constitute another group of indispensable commodities. A still more important group is that comprising mineral resources: Copper, tin, platinum, aluminium, nickel, manganese, and other lesser known but equally indispensable minerals, such as wolfram. It is because the German commercial leaders see the renewal of supplies of these vitally necessary commodities cannot now be a matter of bargaining by reason of her military prowess and gains that tliey are growing alarmed. And no wonder. Germany chose to give up the particularly strong place she held in the world in order to subjugate other nations and wield the sceptre of unlimited power. She has failed in her object, and must accept the punishment for lier unparalleled crimes. "Those who live by the sword shall perish by the eword." Nothing truer has been said.