GUNS — AND BUTTER

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20907, 12 September 1939, Page 6

GUNS AND BUTTER

In spite of Field-Marshal Goering’s boast that Germany has been prepared from the economic point of view to withstand any siege, Germany may yet regret that she placed “guns before butter” in the national policy. It is reasonable to suppose that Germany has amassed large stocks of foodstuffs in anticipation of war, and it will be noted that Field-Marshal Goqj-ing referred to the supplies he expected to be forthcoming from Russia, but it is doubtful whether Russia will have a very large exportable surplus after the needs of her own people are satisfied, Some of the Balkan countries will probably continue to supply Germany with essential commodities, and the German nation itself has made a great effort to become self-contained. When the war drains the country’s manhood away, however, Germany will be forced to rely more and more upon the few friends she possesses, and if the campaign is prolonged it is not unlikely that lack of supplies of food and materials will play a major part in the breakdown of the German striking force. Alroady Germany’s overseas commerce has been swept away, and that must be a heavy blow to a country that even before the war was aloud for more raw materials.

The moral effect in Germany of the incomparably better position of France and Britain in this regard must be tremendous. Germany knows that her opponents have access to almost unlimited quantities of foodstuffs, raw materials and munitions, and that the German navy, even with its submarines, cannot hope to cut off those supplies. Britain with the gigantic effort of the last year or two has produced both guns and butter, and enters the conflict without serious fear of a shortage of either. Britain and France are clearly far better equipped to undertake a long-sustained war than is Germany, and when the Germans discover that their “lightning stroke” has failed, a realisation of their desperate position must come to them.