RULES OF THE REICH

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 100, 1 May 1939, Page 7

RULES OF THE REICH

A GLIMPSE AT GERMAN PAPERS

CONTROL OF INDUSTRY

The following, based on extracts from recent German newspapers, is contributed by a. reader who recently lived in Germany and has since kept in touch with European affairs.

German papers now to hand publish the March regulations affecting various industries, including agriculture, architecture, chemical manufactures,' mines, and so on. The "Frankfurter Zeitung" is, of course, officially, inspired. Its duty is to control the relations between employer and employee.

One of the regulations published is that neither employer nor employee in the industries mentioned may terminate his employment in these works without the permission of the authorities. It is stated that Germany adheres to- the principle of 48 hours a week because it is in such limited hours that a man. does his best work, but at the same time longer hours are announced for the miners, viz., 52 \ hours a week, although it is generally acknowledged that the miners' work is the hardest in Germany.

A regulation is issued about the numBer of people who shall engage in certain trades. It is stated that there is too high a percentage of bakers, butchers, hairdressers, bootmakers, and so on. The local organisations are therefore authorised to inquire into the conditions and takings of the shop^if they think fit they can forbid the owners of the business to continue their work. This is one of the means of gaining new workers for Germany's "vital interests," viz., her war industries.

Similar measures are taken wittt* regard to milk dealers. All milk which is to be sold is taken to a central organisation which treats the milk .and distributes it to the various milk dealers. Farmers, organisations, arid milk dealers are allowed a certain price and profit which they must not exceed. These latest newspapers announce that in future the profit of the milk dealers must be reduced. This reduction will make it impossible for milk dealers with a small turnover to continue their business; therefore it has been ordered that one of two such, dealers shall buy out the other, thus releasing the other for "industrial work."

A general attack was launched against- high prices in Austria. Gauleiter (District Leader) Burchel, in a great speech, made the "avaricious mind" of the Jew responsible for these prices. But most of the former Jewish businesses have been taken, over by the Nazi Party, and Gauleiter Burchel said that the trespasses of the past should be forgiven, but in. future the "honest merchant" must be satisfied with small profits. Nevertheless, since the Anschluss prices in Austria have considerably increased. As the avaricious Jew has been driven away the German papers now ascribe the rise partly to "hoarding and partly to increased marriages. WARNING TO GRUMBLERS. People affected by these regulations are not enthusiastic about them. The following is what the chief constable of the cities of Nuremberg and Furth sees fit to announce: "There are always people who are in danger of being arrested by the police for poisoning public opinion by passing on silly and useless rumours. These people are mostly blockheads who are very unpleasantly surprised to find themselves in prison. They then begin to acknowledge how silly and foolish is the gossip which they passed on. In view of the fact that one always finds among both male and female gossips persons who from inherited wickedness and pleasure in evil invent and pass round such nonsense, in future the police will be very strict and lay pitiless hold of these people." At the same time, the chief of police announces the arrest of a Nuremberg citizen. . The endless regulations of which examples are given at the beginning of this article are followed by this evidence qf police concern over grumbling. The March 10 readers of German newspapers were distracted from domestic affairs by attacks on Czecho-Slovakia, These, like those of last September, accused the Czechs of encroachments and of attacks on Germans, and, indeed, gave readers the impression that Czecho-Slovakia was a quite undis» ciplined State. THE CZECHO-SLOVAKIAN CRISIS. On March 15 great headlines announced "The Czecho-Slovakian Republic Dissolves." The next day the German people learnt that Dr. Hacha desired German protection, that the Fuhrer had granted this request, and that German troops had entered Czecho-Slovakia. These events seem to support the theory that dictators undertake ventures in foreign, policy in order to distract the minds of their people from a difficult internal situation. After March 16 the papers were free to indulge in admiration of ■ the Fuhrer's cleverness and in rejoicing that Prague, that "Old German Capital," was once more under the protection of the German Reich. Naturally, they did not speak of the indignation of the oppressed Czechs, nor of what those Czechs must have felt when they had to abandon their accustomed occupations to work in the armament industries for the protection of the German Reich against "envious enemies."