FACTORIES CLOSE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20185, 1 March 1940, Page 9

FACTORIES CLOSE

NEW NAZI EDICT CONSERVING SUPPLIES ARMY NEEDS FIRST HINTS BY DALADffiR INTERIOR DIFFICULTIES (Elec. Tel. Copyright—Unitod Press Assn.) (Reed. Feb. 29, 2.45 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 28. Amsterdam reports state that the shortage of raw materials due to the blockade is compelling Germany to begin the systematic closing of ail factories, the output of which is not necessary for military purposes or unsuitable for export. A decree orders the closing of several thousand factories and workshops and provides financial aid for the maintenance of the machinery and buildings by the imposition of a tax on the factoriesremaining open. A Paris message quotes a communique issued after the French Premier, M. Daladier, had made a statement to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. The communique states that M. Daladier described the diplomatic activity of “our Turkish friends” gs most pleasing. While disillusioning those depicting Germany as on the verge of collapse, he enumerated grave interior difficulties which the Nazis were endeavouring to hide by propaganda. 1 Messages from Zurich state that thousands of Swiss people cheered the American envoy, Mr. Sumner Welles, on his arrival. He will go to Berlin to-morrow. Meanwhile Nazi sources in Berlin have damped foreign hopes that Herr Hitler might suggest a three-point peace covering the formation of a new and smaller Polish State, selfgovernment for the Bohemian Czechs and disarmament conditionally on the restoration of German colonies. The Berlin paper Diplomatische Korrespondenz declares that peace is inconceivable without correction of “centuries-long wrongs.”