ECONOMIC WARFARE

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 December 1939, Page 8

ECONOMIC WARFARE

MAY BE DECIDING FACTOR

[BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.]

RUGBY, December 9

Increasingly the British Press and informed public opinion are manifesting interest in the economic aspect of the war. Frequently, the opinion is expressed that the economic front may ultimately be the one upon which the struggle is won or lost. In an interesting article, reveiwing the economic situation, the weekly news paper “Economist” says: “The central task of the war, therefore, becomes the speedy mobilisation of our full economic strength.”

In this connection, special importance attaches to estimates, published, in the “Round Table,” of the Allies’ holdings of a single, but vital, factor in the nation’s strength, namely, negotiable foreign investments and gold. These the “Round Table” estimates as being equivalent to the labour of 5,000,000 to 7,000,000 workers for many years.

In comparison Germany’s reserves Gf gold and foreign exchange, even after her seizure of the assets of the Austrian and Czech national banks, are estimated at 250,000,000 dollars at the most, and her position certainly has been steadily deteriorating since the! beginning of the war, as the result of a progressive decline of her exports, and it must be presumed that it will deteriorate even more rapidly as the result of the British reprisal order regarding the seizure of German exports.