CARS PREFERRED TO GUNS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 41, 28 November 1941, Page 4

CARS PREFERRED TO GUNS.

During the first six months of this year the sale of automobiles to civilians in the United States rose by 35 per cent when compared with the same period ford writing from Washington to the “New Statesman.” Similar goods tell the same story, for the sales of refrigerators rose by 42 per cent and of electric cookers by 51 per cent. In these figures you have a nearly aequate picture of life in America to-day. Its focus is everyman’s motor-car; by it the average American lives; one might even say that he lives for it. Necessity and luxury at once, it settles his social .standing and satisfies his love of romance; it is all that his steed was to the Bedouin of Mrs Hemans. It follows that the statistics of its sale and manufacture will tell you nearly all you need know about the trends of American life. From these figures we may at once draw some confident conclusions: America is prosperous and she is not yet throwing her main effort into the work of defence. The choice for Germany lay between butter and guns; the choice for America falls between guns and cars. Up to mid-summer of this year she had shirked it. To be precise, defence, including all she was making for Britain, China and' Russia as well as for herself, accounted only for 15 per cent of her total volume of production.