WAR DEMANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 November 1939, Page 5

WAR DEMANDS

MET SPLENDIDLY BY ALLIED DEMOCRACIES DISCIPLINE AND SACRIFICE. OBSERVATIONS BY FRENCH MINISTER. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, November 14. In ;i broadcast talk today the French Minister of Finance, 31. Paid Reynand, said he had come to England to discuss arrangements for cooperation between France and England in regard io the financial and economic aspects of the war. After noting that Germany was convinced that the democratic peoples would not submit to such great sacrifices as they themselves, M. Reynaud said that in that Germany was mistaken. “After a few hours spent in this country I am deeply impressed by the unanimous determination of the British people to conquer,” he commented, and he described also the French citizens’ sacrifices for the war. Although as individualistic as the French, the British had accepted the necessary war time discipline, he said. Industry had adapted itself to arms, and, in the interests of increased production, workers had agreed to a relaxation of the trade union rules, while the taxation demanded was without precedent. Turning to the French people’s war effort, the Minister said that one in every eight was in the army, and men were replaced by women in the fields and factories. Often but one horse remained in a village, and this was used in turn by all. while women guided the plough. Whole provinces had emptied themselves of their old people and children, and Strasburg, a city of 200,000 inhabitants, was now deserted and silent. By reason of the sacrifice and courage of the French, the financial position had been uninterrupted, and France possessed today greater gold and foreign exchange reserves that at the beginning of the war. France had gone into the war with a determination to end the monotonous recurrence of war in every generation and with Britain to ensure a triumph of liberty in the world.