TOPICS OF THE TIMES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4951, 4 February 1937, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

German Propaganda. "The purpose of German propaganda in this country—propaganda even stronger and more pervasive than it was in 1913 and 1934—is to make sure that we shall hold aloof whenever Hitler chooses to strike. Strike he must and will, in some direction, witin a calculable future unless he can secure by mingled blandishments and terror the rewards of war without making war. Few British partisans of an understanding—clear or otherwise—with Nazi Germany seem able to put themselves in Hitler's place or to think things out from his standpoint. Nazi Germany has spent a huge sum, perhaps £1,500,000,000 on armaments during the past three years. Most of that sum has been raised in the form of a semi-clandes-tine floating debt. For various reasons there must be a time limit to this process. Hitler has told his people that he does not look upon armaments as playthings. We may well believe him, just as we may take his word when he writes that alliances are useless unless they have war as their object."—Mr. Wickham Steed in the Contemporary Review. Waste in House-building. "The average contractor deliberately allows for a 10 per cent._ waste in making his financial calculations. Stop and think what this means. It means that for every 10 houses he completes and delivers to purchasers, he wastes enough to build one additional house. How is that for waste, extravagance, and inefficiency—not all confined to government by any means? But that is far from all the story. Each little subcontractor must figure a 10 per cent, waste into his calculations, too. Add to these wastes of materials the cost of transporting and handling them from source of production to the job, and you will begin to get some slight idea of the excesses consumers pay as a toll, or a tax if you wish, upon an inefficient industry. People who are agitated over a few cents increase in the tax rate might better examine this source of getting nothing for something, for government taxes do bring some value received."—Mr. T. S. Harding in the Christian Century.