GRAVE ECONOMIC SITUATION

Southland Times, Issue 23818, 16 May 1939, Page 7

GRAVE ECONOMIC SITUATION

NAZIS THREATENED BY INFLATION INFERIOR QUALITY OF EXPORTS LONDON, May 14. The Financial Times publishes an important series of articles on the gravity of the German economic situation. The articles reveal the immin- • ence of destructive inflation in spite of forced loans and the most strict regimentation of industry. Moreover, the latest foreign trade returns from the Reich show a fall of more than £13,000,000 for the first quarter of 1939. Buyers are complaining of the inferior quality of German exports, especially iron and steel manufactures and Diesel engines. The workmanship is described as as good as ever but the materials as rotten.” ... .. Mr George Bishop, who is investigating German rearmament for a House of Commons group, in his preliminary report shows that the German output of crude steel increased from 11,000,000 tons in 1934 to 23,000,000 in 1938. Sweden supplied Germany with 9,000,000 tons of iron ore in 1937—hence the Reich s desire for a pact with Scandinavia. France supplied 5,000,000 tons. America sold Germany 420,462 tons of scrap in 1938, Belgium 197,000 and Britain 84,000. More than 50 per cent, of German. manganese imports came from South Africa between 1933 and 1938. “If foreign countries had not supplied Germany with war metals Germany would have been helpless, r says Mr Bishop.