Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1938. THE SLUMP IN GERMANY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 August 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1938. THE SLUMP IN GERMANY.

JT is thoroughly in keeping with Nazi tactics that the German Minister for Economy, Dr Funk, should ascribe the slump in securities on the Berlin Bourse to endeavours “originating with anti-German circles abroad” and declare that Germans, on the other hand, “are showing unswerving confidence.” If there is any truth in the last-quoted statement, the standards of intelligence ruling in Germany must be much lower than most people would have supposed. The slump in Germany which made itself manifest in a collapse of industrial and other securities on the Berlin Bourse—the slump against which it has been intimated that Herr Hitler is determined to take drastic action — obviously has some peculiar features, notably in the fact that it is accompanied by a serious shortage of labour. The whole explanation of this extraordinary state of affairs is that, under Nazi rule, everything else is subordinated to the creation of a gigantic war machine. If it is true, as has been suggested, and as comparatively recent events to some extent indicate, that even the Reichswehr chiefs are under the necessity of bowing down to Hitler, the apparent explanation is that Hitler has made himself the leader of German militarism and has insisted upon as ruthless a dedication of the national resources to militarism as the most bellicose Prussian of the old regime could desire. The facts of the position are made manifest .even in the strictly dispassionate pages of the League of Nations “World Economic Survey,” which, in its latest available references to the economic position in Germany, observed in part:— Significant financial statistics are still withheld, and the degree to which the increase of economic activity and employment is dependent upon Government expenditure for armament and other purposes is not known, nor is accurate information available of the methods by which such expenditure is financed. The banking system, like other aspects of economic organisation is dominated by Government regulation and there is much evidence of the whole German economy being firmly directed towards national aims. The launching of a Four-Year Plan to make Germany . less dependent upon imported raw materials and foodstuffs imposed fresh regulations and sacrifices at, the . end of 1936. Under the Four-Year Plan, and in the interests of military expansion, the Nazi dictatorship has run down the livingstandards of the German people and has hamstrung Germany’s own trade and that of other countries. The admitted facts of the position speak for' themselves. All available workers in Germany are employed and yet demands for labour are so far from being satisfied that Marshal Goering, as one of yesterday’s cablegrams reported, has decided to reintroduce the ten-hour day in Germany to minimise the shortage of workers in the armament, building and agricultural industries, which the increased employment of women has not remedied. In a country organised economically as Germany is, the use of the whole energies of the nation normally would produce a high degree of comfort and general prosperity. These results are not being attained in Germany at present because the welfare of the nation, along with other things, is being subordinated to military expansion. What may fairly be called over-employment in Germany goes hand in hand with poor living standards, exorbitant taxation and the collapse of confidence strikingly exemplified of late on the Berlin Bourse. It is possible that even in the minds of the politically docile German people these conditions may awaken and nourish the spirit of revolt against their tyrants. Unfortunately the possibility also exists, and has long been recognised, that these same tyrants may seek in external adventure a means of diverting attention from economic troubles at home which are a direct outcome of their own policy.

REFUGEES AS IMMIGRANTS. ANOTHER brick has been thrown at the British Dominions in the matter of immigration, on this occasion by Mr James Macdonald, former League of Nations high commissioner for refugees, who told the World A outh Congress, in New York, as he is reported, that the refugee problem would be solved if the British Dominions and Central and South America would follow the lead of the United States, which was accepting 27,000 Jewish refugees each year. “Your governments are being offered the opportunity,” Mr Macdonald declared, “of enriching themselves with the picked brains and intelligence of some of the finest, people in the world.” The fine quality of at least a large proportion of the people who are being driven from their homes in Europe is not in question. There is some excuse, however, for lack of enterprise by the Dominions in' securing a proportion of these people as immigrants. The Dominions have their .unsolved problems of unemployment and naturally are anxious to bring in immigrants only in conditions that would be mutually advantageous. It may be open to some of the European exiles to take the initiative in dealing with the Dominions, for example by submitting plans of industrial development and expansion. People of an acceptable type desiring to settle in this country, or in any other Dominion, can offer no better recommendation than an assurance that they will be employed effectively • and with benefit to themselves and to the country of their adoption. Practical and definite proposals on the lines here suggested would be better worth discussing than reproachful generalities like those Mr Macdonald is reported to have uttered in New York.