FOUR-YEAR PLAN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 54, 3 February 1937, Page 8

FOUR-YEAR PLAN.

The German peasants have a big task betore tiiem witli respect to Herr Hitler’s four-year plan. Agriculture is expected to provide, as far as possible, full domestic production of Germany’s food requirements, 20 per cent, of which had still to be imported in 1935. Besides drainage and further improvement of waste land, extensive transformation of pasture land into arable land is intended over a wide area, as agricultural production of fodder seems to be more economic than the use of pasture. Only 10 per cent, of the output yielded by German soil relates to pasture, which constitutes as much as 30 per cent, of the whole surface under cultivation. It is thought that propaganda and financial assistance will promote more extensive use of artificial manure. The construction of silos for preserving green fodder will be favoured by appropriate measures. The use of grain for distilling purposes has been forbidden, while that of potatoes is to be gradually reduced. The cultivation of oleaginous crops, especially rape seed, will be extended. The farmers are compelled to comply with central planning without regard to their individual interest. The increased use of machinery on small farms is to be promoteu by lowering the rates tor electrical power. German farmers appear to be troubled with the laoour problem, for they demand increased working hours in the factories with a view to rendering migration of labour into the towns less attractive, and to setting free for agriculture hands otherwise employed in the industries. Germany is aiming at selfsufficiency, but whether she will succeed is quite another matter. JNo country can isolate itself from the rest of the world. If Germany will not buy from other countries, she will be unable to sell to other countries. It is denied that, under the four-year-plan, Germany intends to withdraw more or less from world trade, for it is claimed that the standard of life in Germany is elastic enough for creating unlimited scope for foreign trade, even after the . exhaustion of all possibilities of replacing- imported commodities by domestic production. The four-year-plan, it is argued, is the logical consequence of Germany’s lack of sufficient natural resources within her borders, and of her deprivation of colonies, from which she could get her requirements in terms of her currency.