FIVE FRONTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 March 1940, Page 5

FIVE FRONTS

GERMANY HARD PRESSED ON ALL SURVEY BY SIR G. PAISH. ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL Factors. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. February 28. In a speech at Dover today Sir George Paish (who is Governor of the London Schoo] of Economies, and who in the last Wiir was Adviser to the Treasury on Financial and Economic questions), spoke of the “five fronts” on which the nation is fighting —naval, military, diplomatic, economic, and financial. On the naval front, he said, the Allies were- completely victorous, on the military front the German army was in a state of stagnation, and on the diplomatic front world opinion was steadily swinging in favour of France and Britain. According to his information, said Sir George Paish, German distress on the ecenomic front was increasing and might become desperate before the next harvest. The financial front must also be giving grave concern to the German financial authorities, for a very large part of Germany’s expenditure was being provided by note expansion, which was giving rise to fears of runaway inflation. On all fronts, therefore, the Allied Powers were marching to victory. Sir George said that nearly £lOO,000,000 had been provided in Britain by the sale of the National Savings Certificates and Defence Bonds in under three months, but this was a relatively small sum compared with the amount needed, and he asked that the sum reached in the next three months be much greater. WAR ECONOMY REASSURING POSITION INDICATED. WAGES AND RETAIL PRICES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 28. Reassuring figures were cited by Lord Hankey (Minister without Portfolio in the .War Cabinet) in a debate in the House of Lords on the dangers of inflation. He revealed that Bank of England indices of retail sales suggested that a considerable measure o‘f economy had been exercised by the public in its personal expenditure in recent months. On the side of wages, the Government was in the position of having the full co-operation both of the employers and employed in industrial problems connected with the prosecution of the war, he continued. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had been able to place the elements of the financial problem frankly and fully before the National Joint Advisory Council of representatives of the British Employers’ Federation and the General Council of the Trade Union Congress, and since then the whole matter had been earnestly discussed by the council. Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, met representatives of investment organisations which take a large part in the disposal of the national savings, and urged that in the largest measures possible funds available for investment should be lent directly to the nation during the war. He received an assurance of the desire of the bodies concerned to cooperate in the national effort.