NAZI ECONOMICS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 25, 29 July 1940, Page 6

NAZI ECONOMICS

NEW ORDER IN EUROPE

AIMED AS MUCH AT OUTSIDE WORLD

OPINION "IN ENGLAND

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, July 27,

The remarks addressed to foreign Pressmen in Berlin by the Nazi Minister of Economic Affairs, , Dr. Funk, on the "new economic order" to be imposed upon Europe were read in economic circles in England with some interest. The interview bears obvious signs of being aimed as much at the outside world, which is required to accommodate itself to Nazi-ruled Europe, as to the lesser States, which are required to cooperate in a subordinate capacity with Hitler's greater Reich, and the part intended for other continents is a characteristic Nazi mixture of bribery and blackmail.

Outside countries are encouraged to hope for excellent trading opportunities in post-war Germany and its subjugated European "colonies," but business circles in those countries may feel somewhat suspicious when they hear also that the methods to be employed are those which have already brought most satisfactory trade results to Germany before and during the war.

They will remember what these methods were like and that their aim was autocracy. They will have heard how the countries brought within the economic order of the Reich have been exploited by clever manipulation of the bargaining power of a great economic entity concentrated in the hands of the State. FORCING DELIVERIES. Examples will be known to them of how the power to close the German market to a country's products or switch German purchases elsewhere would be used to force delivery of just those exports which Germany wanted in just the quantities she desired, without regard to the effect on the balance of the other country's own economy or the rest of its export trade.

They will remember how, by one device or another, the terms of trade were turned to the disfavour of the countries exporting to Germany, and how in the end they would often be confronted with no alternative but to take payment for their exports in goods which they did not want—accidental surpluses of this or that branch of German industry—or watch anxiously the growth of a credit in their clearing arrangements with the Reich which, with seeming paradox, worked to put them more and more under the necessity of economic subservience to their debtor.

That experience might befall any country which, for one reason or another, took advantage of the seemingly tempting opportunities to trade with Nazi Germany.

In this connection, an interesting Press report has just been received here, according to which Italy and Germany owe Mexico 4,000,000 dollars for deliveries of petrol before the outbreak of war. ECONOMIC ENSLAVEMENT. But at the same time as holding out these delusive prospects, Dr. Funk made it clear that any State, in the New World as in the Old, which ventured to uphold economic ideals other than Nazi, or pursued another econoI mic policy, would incur disfavour with those controlling the European economic machine from Berlin. He hinted that the United States would be expected to attune its policy to Nazij theory. If what the new economic order sketched by Dr. Funk would offer to other continents is spurious trade relations, what it would involve for the rest of Europe is economic enslave-! ment. That is an opinion which has been frequently expressed in the British Press over recent weeks, and economic experts here, reading between the lines of Dr. Funk's carefullyphrased statement, find in it full justification for the newspapers' judgment. . , German economic hegemony is to be established at the cost of sacrifices in other parts of Europe which will disrupt economic life. The Nazis' schemes, whether they be of Dr. Funk's or Dr. Schacht's devising, spell permanently reduced standards of living in Europe. EXPLOITATION FOR GERMANY'S BENEFIT. . This reduction will bear immediately and sorely on all classes in the States of northern and western Europe. In the more backward States in the southeast it will be felt first among the professional classes and traders. Behind Dr. Funk's phrases," such as "currency problems will be solved automatically through the redistribution of labour," "it is not intended to restore free foreign exchange or create a currency union which is a customs union," and "it is not intended to put greater Germany on an entirely selfsufficient basis; Germany will continue to export manufactured goods —behind such phrases lie plans for the exploitation of all other peoples for Germany's benefit.