"We Should Build For Peace On Hitler's Structure For War"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 298, 9 March 1945, Page 6

"We Should Build For Peace On Hitler's Structure For War"

N this article from "Picture Post,’ Upton Sinclair says that Hitler arranged Europe’s production so that all the countries under his domination were parts of one colossal industrial unit. It would be reactionary, and probably impossible, to "unscramble" this unit. Therefore we should take it and convert it from the ends of war to those of peace. Following Sinclair's plan, there is a critical examination of it by two economists-Sir Walter Layton and Robert Boothby, M.P.

HE setting up of Humpty Dumpty, the unscrambling of a basketful of eggs, will be a child’s puzzle in comparison with the one which the statesmen of Britain. and America and Russia will have to. solve. The Nazis have deliberately scrambled the whole of Central Europe. They have done it with German thoroughness, for the precise purpose of making it impossible for anybody to unscramble it. I do not mean merely that populations have been shifted about; ‘that millions of ‘families have been driven from their homes, and the homes and land turned over to Germans or quislings. I mean that the industry of Europe has been taken to pieces and put together again on a new principle. Competition among the industries of different nations has been entirély wiped out, and the whole thing ‘has been reconstructed into one colossal industrial trust managed by Nazis. Of course, much of that industry has been wrecked in the course of the fighting; no one can guess what percentage. What is important is that the.structure will be left. The American, British, and Russian armies, which take over Central Europe, will have that Nazi economic machine to work. Somebody ought to be thinking hard right now, and deciding what use is going to be made of it. "Colossal Industrial Empire" The wholesale bombing of the Ruhr has undoubtedly caused the withdrawal of immense quantities of machinery farther into the interior of Germany, and it seems well established that all the newest and most recent constructions are in the eastern and _ south-eastern parts, or in what was once Czechoslovakia and Austria. There are coal and iron there, and other natural resources. Just as Russia shifted her industrial heart to the Ural Mountains, so Germany, counting on her ability to hold back the Russian armies, made herself a new and colossal industrial machine as far away from British and American bombers as she could get. Ss e~

Nazi Germany scrambled Central’ Europe; she there constructed one colossal fthdustrial empire, designed and used for the purpose of conquest and dominion, "for the next thousand years" (the phrase used by Hitler). ‘ Now the Allied armies are going to take possession of that empire, and have to decide what to do with it. Two courses can be followed: we can proceed to break up that great industrial empire and set up a multiplicity of small competing enterprises; or we can take the great construction, one of the greatest achievements of human energy and brains, convert it from the ends of war to the ends of peace, and set it to making plenty and comfort for the peoples of Central Europe for the next thousand years. We shall be putting Europe back into poverty and blind strife if we choose the former of these two plans. The statesmen of the world must manage to find a way to use those gigantic new tools, to make possible the production of mass security and comfort, if modern machinery is to exist and if large-scale production is to be carried on. The time of decision has come with speed beyond our imagining. In the words of Carlyle: "Choose well, your choice is brief and yet endless." A Five-Point Scheme Here is a scheme set forth for the consideration of all who believe in the validity of moral standards, and in the possibility 6f applying them in the fields of industry and government; who believe that the mind of man is capable of conceiving, not merely bombing planes and machine-guns, but also peace, order, and justice in the ancient field of government, and likewise in the modern field of mass-production and industry. (1) Those portions of the German Empire and of its satellite states which have been integrated into a great war-production industry shall be taken over by the Allies, and converted as quickly as possible into a peaceproduction industry for the whole of Europe. (2) They shall be constituted into a new political entity called Freestate, in German Frejstadt. They shall be reconstructed and administered by a corporation composed of industrial experts from the Allied nations. They shall be dedicated to the purpose of producing the goods needed by the peoples of Europe. The goods produced shall be sold at cost-the word cost including, naturally, the administrative costs of the. government of the Freestate territories. (4) All tariffs on goods entering and leaving Freestate shall be abolished. Access to and through the territories of Freestate shall ‘be free to all law-abiding persons. (5) As soon as the work of reconstruction has been achieved and the enterprise has settled down to continuous and orderly production, the governing board of Freestate shall admit to its membership representatives from all the peoples of Europe, and the enterprise shall ultimately evolve into a public service corporation, controlled by the peoples who share in its benefits, not merely those who live tn its territories and labour in its industries, but those who purchase its productions. For Service. Not Profit In othet words, Freestate will become fa producers’ and consumers’ co-opera-tive,. self-sustaining, and conducted on

strictly business lines; a corporation not for profit but for public service, In the settlement of the last war we set up what was called a cordon sanitaire, a row of small border states intended ‘to seal off Western Europe from Bolshevism. The results require no discussion: they are before our eyes. Instead of a twenty billion dollar war, the United States have now a two hundred billion dollar war. Instead of four million men under arms, we have had twelve million. In short, the Allies have had to do the job all over again, and have found it a much bigger job. Where is our cordon sanitaire going to be this time? There was class struggle

all over Europe before this war broke out, and, unless we display wisdom and statesmanship from the first moments of our victory, we are going to ‘see it flame into a general conflagration. It is necessary that we should tell the peoples of Europe what we are going to do. We should put before them this project of Freestate, and let them know that the three great industrial nations, the United States, Britain, and Russia, are going to give them the benefit of mass production at cost. And we would thus make it possible for them to enjoy peace and plenty at. the. earliest. possible moment. aa