NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 59, 9 March 1940, Page 14

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

DRIVE FOR EXPORTS

BRITAIN LAYS PLANS

FORMIDABLE OFFENSIVE

The British drive for export markets, to help.to finance the war and to take away trade from Germany, is now beginning to take definite shape. .:

While the whole plan is still riot revealed enough has been said to show that a most determined attempt is to be made to draw neutral countries out of the German economic orbit, and that the Nazis will soon be faced with trade competition which will dwarf anything that they have had to meet so far. .

The export council, according co an announcement by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, will include trades union officials, and officials of the Treasury, the. Foreign Office, and the 'Ministries of Supply and Economic Warfare. One of its members will be "Sir >Tosiah Stamp. . , " ; ";. Industries Mobilised. ? It has also been disclosed that more than 30 industries have been mobilised for- this export drive into neutral markets, and that for months the Board of Trade has been canvassing leaders of industrial associations asking them to make suggestions for trade abroad and to give estimates of the quantities of raw materials needed to fill export orders.. <■.• ■ " ■■..'.• ';.. '.'," • , Arrangements haye.now. been completed for supplies of raw materials. The chief industries concerned are believed >to; be the cotton 'arid; "wool trades, textile plants, motor-car makers, linen, silk, and-rayon works, andeiectrical machinery manufacturers. ". The general public -has^beeri; warned that to parry out .these- plans' rationing of goods in' Britain will begin. More About War Costs. Yesterday it was mentioned in this column that M. Cesar Campinchi, the French Naval Minister, had disclosed that the cost of one minute's gunfire by the-new French battleship Richelieu would be. about £10,000. ,-. In the same speech M. Campinchi gave some additional details-of ,what the war. at sea, can cost the French. The Richelieu.is an'outsize battleship, with 15in guns and costing,the French taxpayer about £9,000,000. She, is not yet in. service, and consequently,has not blown away this sum in the effort to leave her mark on Hitler's ships. .But the French are using plenty of depth bombs -against the raiding Üboats, and have sunk 14 of them.-The 4401b depth charges used by the .French Navy in fighting submarines cost about £27- each, according to M. Campinchi. In destroying one U-boat, the French destroyer Sirocco dropped nine of these depth charges, so the cost of the operation was about £240-" A French mine costs about £330, and a torpedo about £2400. Increase in Unemployment. The fact that Britain's unemployed have increased recently, which appeared in the cablegrams this; toeek, was admitted by the Ministry of Labour on February 5. The statistics issued at that time showed the rise unemployment to be 157 f ,OOO. This development, in a country where war production is now being concentrated upon, might be surprising, but the Ministry of Labour blamed the freezing weather of January for the increase which had taken- place between December 11 and January 15. The cold virtually brought outdoor work to a standstill. Six trades—agriculture, building, public works, stone and slate, quarrying, brickmaking,- and local government services, accounted for about 142,000 extra unemployed. Conferences Held. However, a rise in unemployment in the steel trades also was jioted. It stood at 3240 for the month. Other war industries, the statistics showed, also carried a margin of unemployed workers. Meantime the Government has opened conferences with the trades union leaders4 on the subject of the supply of labour for war industries. Plans for expanding production have been placed before the representatives of the- Amalgamated Engineering Union, though the details have been kept secret. According to Mr. Fred Smith, the; secretary of the union, a vast increase in the output of arms and the amount of labour needed for munitions factories is projected. Our Cousins No More. The "Schwarze Korps," . the newspaper published by Heinrich Himmler, head of the. Nazi Black Guards, has been attacking a dream. ; The dream is that the British' are cousins to the Germans, and it is time, the "Schwarze Korps" thinks, that this illusion was destroyed. "Experience has taught us that the Latin peoples, yes, even the peoples of distant Japan, are incomparably closer to us in their attitude towards life and their philosophy than our 'Germanic Cousins' on the- British-. Isles." the newspaper said editorially. : However, the "Schwarze Korps" admits that this theory is too novel to be grasped by everyone the moment it is put forward. "We have been far too accustomed to regard England as we would like, it to be," it says. "Thus we honour Shakespeare as we would a German classical poet, overlooking the'fact that the very qualities that we admire in him made him a poor example of an. Englishman." German Traits Gone. Time -has eliminated the truly German traits from the British, according to this -view,"leaving only those which are ascribed to,"a Jewish nation." The peculiar fate of the Jewish people, as set forth in the racial theories of the "Schwarze' Korps" ; (and no 6ne else) decreed that only those should survive "who conquered life with trickery arid cunning." The isolation of : the British is declared to. have; created ..the same "line of breeding." By constantly marrying the daughters pf Jhpse who achieved success as haggiing.merchants the British "have stamped themselves-with characteristics closely resembling those of the Jews."