COAL & POWER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1941, Page 6

COAL & POWER

SHORTAGE IN FRANCE FACTORIES TO CLOSE DOWN. ANOTHER BOMB EXPLOSION IN PARIS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 16. The Vichy Government has ordered the majority of factories to close down for two weeks as from December 21 because of a shortage of coal and electric power. It is estimated that there is a reduction of 30 per cent in supplies of coal in France because of French inability to import from Britain, which formerly supplied 2,000,000 tons annually. Other causes are decreased production in the north because of war damage, the absence of Polish, Balkan and African labourers used formerly and now prisoners in Germany, the fact that the Lorraine mines have been turned over to Germany and decreased output caused by food shortages. While it would, in theory, be possible for the Germans to supply the deficit of coal, they, in fact, have been unable to do so. A large proportion of German coal is required for German use, there has been a decline in the output in Belgium, and transport difficulties hamper distribution. A Vichy message says that a bomb exploded this evening in a German military police mess in Paris. This is the third attack on Germans in Paris today. The United States Secretary of State. Mr Hull, commenting on reports of renewed Axis demands on Vichy, said: “I firmly believe that the French people will know, as in the . past, how to meet their responsibilities in the present situation.”