HUSBANDING RESOURCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23602, 11 March 1940, Page 6

HUSBANDING RESOURCES

Discussing the question of how the war was to be won, Major-General Freyberg said in his broadcast talk: "It will be a war of supply . . . We must, therefore, husband our resources." A moment's reflection shows how the course of the war so far has borne out General Freyberg's prescription. Problems of supply have not yet, however, been given the practical attention in New Zealand that their central importance warrants. The institution of petrol rationing in order to save dollar credits represents the sole large-scale experience by the public of the application of the principle of conservation. Shortage of sterling gave the Minister of Finance and Customs as well as importers a close acquaintance with what was involved nine months before the war broke out. In the long war that is anticipated, this country is bound to learn more of what will be required by way of effort and sacrifice so that resources may be husbanded. Britain is showing the way. She is organising to export more and is carefully laying out the proceeds to the best advantage for the primary purpose of winning the war. Thus Britain is reserving most of the dollar credits available for buying- munitions, and particularly aircraft, in the United States. She has less money to spend, therefore, on American primary products —fruit, cotton, tobacco, grain, meat, fish and timber. -These purchases might have been in part maintained if the United States had not insisted on payment in cash, but in any case Britain is concerned to outbid Germany for supplies of all kinds in the neutral markets still open to the Reich. Thus trade is being reorientated on a huge scale as part of that war of supply whose importance General Freyberg emphasised, and in whose operations it may be hoped New Zealand will be organised to play a worthy part.