Uses of Adversity

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 109, 11 May 1939, Page 13

Uses of Adversity

In her foreign propaganda Germany makes continual use of the Versailles Treaty because many non-Germans agree that some of its features were iniquitous and think Germans are now entitled to a new better (teal, writes the Berlin correspondent of the Sunday Times. On the military side it lias certainly turned out to bo a blessing. It compelled the Germans to scrap all old equipment and to concentrate on the art of getting more power out of the smaller ships, the smaller guns to which they were at first restricted. The ban on an air force made them practise gliding and saved them millions that others spent on aeroplanes before they had devised better models. And the prohibition of a regular army fired military zeal and resulted In a frenzy of physical culture and training such as Germany had never known before, besides leading to the formation of secret, military and semi-military units. The raw material shortage of to-day—due partly to the “guns or butte:” economy—is serving as an incentive to inventors, chemists and engineers to find substitutes.