NEARING THE END

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19038, 11 June 1936, Page 14

NEARING THE END

GERMANY'S RESOURCES HUGE ARMAMENTS BILL £300,000,000 A YEAH LONDON, May 16. A grim account, of the internal condition of .Germany is given by the Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian. Thero are signs, lie writes, that all the resources of the State are coming to an end. ' The impasse reached is the result of the colossal expenditure- on armaments (believed to be £300,000,000 for the current year), the expenditure on social experiments and, finally, the loss of markets.

Behind the elation created by the remilitarisation of the Rhineland and other successes, there are serious murrnurings in the country against the internal economic policy. Devaluation, says the Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, is .uescapable, except in the unlikely event ol a reversal of expansion, coupled with a deflationary policy of retrenchment, which would be unpopular with most sections of the people. Budget details have been secret now for three years, but financial authorities declare that the current annual expenditure on defence is about £300,000.000. The short-term debt, by means of which German) .armaments are largely financed, is computed at £1,600,000,000. The National Debt, funded and unfunded, is estimated at £3,750,000,000. requiring an appropriation of about E 160,000,000 annually for consolidation. ALL FOR ARMS The revival of German industry springs almost entirely from armaments and public works, but despite the huge circulation of money, the 17,000,000 of the employed population are not wearing! more clothes or mating more food. Revival is confined largely to- capital goods, while the production of "consumption has actually fallen. The. social effects are a serious preoccupation of the Nazis, while business experts are anxious about the economic implications. The extremely low wage-level is worrying Nazi Radicals. Official returns show that more than 55 per cent of working people earn less than 24 marks a week, and only 23 per cent earn over 36 marks. The domestic purchasing power of the nominal gpld mark- in Foodstuffs and clotjiing is equivalent to the English milling. The vast Nazi bureaucracy is regarded .is one cause of swollen expenditure, and is responsible for an extraordinary tangle A restrictions. Thus the State gives the bulk of new jrders; it rations raw materials and directs the flow of capital. No fresh capital may be raised for private-pur-poses, no new industries may be founded, no banks may be established, and no extensions may be made in the milling of .lour, in brewing, in baking! or in butch, ering, without tne authority of the law. This also applies to new cinemas, newspapers, petrol stations and departnent stores. Some of the restrictions are connected with the, Nazi social programme, but •nosl are the result of budgetary and financial policy. The foreign trade policy is far from being the success that was anticipated. Thero is a serious shortage of raw naterials', and the capital reserves of the country are almost exhausted.