ECONOMIC WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1942, Page 6

ECONOMIC WAR

EFFECTS ON AXIS

RUGBY, January 7. The Ministry of Economic Warfare stated this afternoon that from evidence reaching London it was clear that European war production had fallen below the peak level reached last spring. A decline had set in. Germany was unable to use all the production facilities at her disposal in the occupied territories, and munitions plants lay idle.

Factories in France were short of supplies. In Czecho-Slpvakia labour trouble acted as permanent sabotage. Italy was unable to work to capacity. Her best workers were in Germany, and those that remained were underfed to a point even beyond inefficiency.

Germany, the spokesman added, was unlikely to feel any scarcity in metals for the. next six months, though her supplies of nickel and copper should be quite exhausted at the end of the

Avar. It was difficult to see in what way she would be able to replace these two vital war materials. Deficiencies in oil, leather, rubber, and textiles were growing more severe, and in the case of the last, it was reckoned that her needs were only .two-thirds covered. In the textile category were included all fibres, such as hemp and jute, which were industrially essential. Germany was not yet dangerously underfed, though her ally Italy was at starvation level. The position in Italy was^so bad that a detailed analysis was illuminating. It was generally reckoned 'that 3000 calories per person were needed daily. Ordinary Italian workers got 2200; and heavy workers 2600. It was scarcely surprising that the Italian armament output was miserable. In Germany the ordinary man was granted 2300 calories, but the German heavy worker got 3300—8.0. W.