Evening Post MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1939. THE ECONOMIC WEAPON

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 36, 13 February 1939, Page 8

Evening Post MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1939.

THE ECONOMIC WEAPON

In all this elaboration of new [instruments of war, does the money bullet stand where it did, and do economic reserves still fill their ultimate winning role? The world [hears a great deal of the lightning stroke that will end a war in a time too brief to be calculated —too brief to permit the money bullets to become effective by weight of numbers. The idea—even the phrase—is not new.j [In 1911 General Bernhardi wrote that !"when the German army comes it will come as lightning from the clouds"; and in 1914 it did corneas far as the Marne. But a modern Bernhardi has many new technical cards up his sleeve—motorisation, mechanisation, and air-war on whole populations. He can point to many reasons for a short war, yet to few wars that are short. Horrors have not greatly shortened the war in Spain, nor yet the war in China; and, even now, foreign credits for the Chinese may defeat Japan's major objects. Money still talks. The short-circuit-ing warfare that aims, in theory, to cut out monetary and economic power has still to be demonstrated.

If the money bullet has not been proved to be superfluous in war, still more certain it is that preparations for war lean heavily on economic power. A British Minister, Mr. Walter Elliot, records the following, as being among the' simple yet dominating facts of the international tangle: • '

The economic strain on all arming nations today was severe and increasing. In that strain the immense economic reserves of Great Britain were coming into play, and with greater effect as the pace increased.

The biggest and best card in the pack that provides the card-play between Rome and London is the money card. It is easy to talk of rendering use> less that card, and of neutralising the resources of a scattered Empire by rapidly severing its communications and damaging its nerve-centres. But this possibility grows remoter every day as the effort to meet the foreseen danger gathers momentum. The strength of Britain, says Mr. Elliot, is increasing "not only in its armed forces but in the slow-burning, reluctant, but resolute gathering up of Its spirit." A moral as well as a material revival, decisive probably in actual war, and likely to be still I more decisive in that lesser war which is called an armaments race.

The temptation to turn to advantage a temporary, and transitory, superiority in armament may be great. Yet so shrewd a judge as Dr. Benes tells the Americans that war in Europe is not likely soon. Bracketing his view with that of Mr. Elliot, their combined effect is to reduce the surprise risk. Such a gain of time is important from the standpoint not only 'of armaments but of the spirit behind the armaments —a spirit "slow-burning, reluctant, but resolute.*'* This slowness is characteristic of a democracy as opposed to a dictatorship. A dictator presses a button; a democracy evolves into action in its own I time. Mr. Baldwin added a useful phrase to diplomatic terminology when he appealed to Herr Hitler, about three years ago, to "press the button for peace." The idea behind the phrase was that the dictator could quickly settle the European issue by the peace route; and that, in contrast, a democratic Government could proceed but slowly along those tortuous courses that the Baldwin and Chamberlain Governments have since followed—courses which some] call appeasement, which others call i mere postponement of the crisis, but which, on any view whatever, have at least gained valuable time. The British Empire is indebted to Mr. Elliot for reminding it that the Empire's "immense economic reserves" can be decisive in an armaments race and probably in war itself. These reserves can indeed preserve the peace of the world. But not merely in their passive capacity. Active use must be made of the Empire's strength and some of the reserves must be drawn on. Relatively, the money strength and the economic power of the United Kingdom far exceed those of the Dominions, but that is no reason why the sacrifices of the Dominion populations should be, less than the sacrifices of the United Kingdom population. "Slow-burning, reluctant, but resolute," the spirit of the people in Britain has been fanned into flame by proximity to the scene of danger, and one result is that a large portion of British credit has been thrown into the

breach, even to the extent of a serious mortgaging of the future. Should the people of the Dominions set themselves any relatively lighter task? Dare they rate their own safety at any lower price? This is the question that should be aroused by the British Minister's comforting allusion to the fighting power of the money bullet and the superior endurance of economic reserves.