WAR PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 October 1941, Page 5

WAR PRODUCTION

SOVIET SECOND LINE DEVELOPMENT 'BRITISH AND AMERICAN ASSISTANCE. SUPPLEMENTING REMAINING RESOURCES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 4. The possibilities of giving British and United States industrial help to Russia are discussed in the “Economist,” which shows how, even if the Russians lose Leningrad, Moscow and the Ukraine industrial front, with over 60 per cent of the U.S.S.R. total industrial capacity, Britain and the United States would be able to supply the weapons, machine-tools and special steels without which the Ural and Siberian industrial regions could not carry on. Asiatic Russia is still extremely dependent on the older industrial regions of European Russia, which supply twothirds of the machinery required in the Urals, while the increasing steel, output, general purpose steel, rails, heavy girders and other categories have to be imported, largely from the Ukraine. Nevertheless, the Ural region now produces one fifth of the union’s iron and one quarter of the steel, while at Sverdlovsk, Novotagil and Cheylabinsk there are plants producing all types of machinery and machine-tools. According to the 1942 programme, more than 35 per cent of the union s output of pig iron and steel and rolled metal is to come from the “second line” of the Urals and Siberia. These figures illustrate Russia’s ability to continue the struggle if the European areas are lost, for Lord Beaverbrook and Mr Harriman have promised that all Russian needs will be met from the older' industrial systems of Britain and the United States, which, if the worst comes to the worst, can, according to the “Economist,” take the place of European Russia in keeping Asiatic Russia going. A Moscow report says the British and United States missions to the Moscow conference toured the war factories in the Moscow area and afterward one of the American delegates said: “I have seen nothing better than these plants in the United States and Europe. I am very impressed by the efficient organisation as well as the individual workmanship.” The Soviet Information Bureau announces that many of Russia’s rhost important factories doubled their daily output last week. Messages from Moscow indicate the enthusiasm with which the speedy and

successful conclusion. of the conference is hailed in Russia. The sum of the comment in front-page leading articles in all influential newspapers is that. “The conference is a decisive turning-point in the struggle against Hitler.” The “Isvestia” says: “The conference is one of the best manifestations of the support which will strengthen the antiHitler front and hasten the forthcoming victory.” The same paper says that the delivery of planes, tanks, artillery, and other war supplies and materials needed by the Soviet Union will now assume an organised and systematic character and volume and keep on increasing.” All the Moscow newspapers publish front-page photos of the signing of the findings and decisions arrived at. The “Pravda” shows M. Molotov signing, with Lord Beaverbrook sitting at his right hand and Mr Harriman looking over M. Molotov’s shoulder.