Starve Thy Enemy

Cable address of Britain's Ministry of Economic Warfare is WHISKERS, LONDON. Britons call the Ministry "MEW." This light-hearted self-mockery is unwarranted. For the Ministry, housed in the gloomy, awesome London School of Economics, is one of the soberest, most intricate, least whiskery bureaus in the Government. It may be the decisive factor if Britain is to win the war.

MEW'S work is negative. Instead of building up Britain's economic strength, its entire effort is to break Germany's by cutting off German trade. Two principal means to this end are: 1) naval blockade; 2) underselling and overbidding Germany in markets which the blockade cannot cut off (The Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia, the Balkans).

Last week the House of Commons got its first detailed report on the effects of these measures from Minister of Economic Warfare Ronald Hibbert Cross. Tall, fair-haired, direct, pleasant, incisive, 43, a merchant-banker and civil servant of the conservative Eton-Army-business pattern, Ronald Cross is considered one of the most promising of the Government's younger supporters. Politically brash, he nevertheless once thoughtfully sent flowers to an ill and defeated opponent. His present job is to see that the enemy gets no flowers until its funeral.

Minister Cross's speech hit the House of Commons as it lolled in what one Parliamentarian called "the genial vacuum of emotion" left behind War Secretary Leslie Hore-Belisha's sudden resignation. Out of the speech leaped one lightning sentence which made the vacuum crumple in a thunder of applause: "At the end of four-and-one-half months, Germany is in something like the same economic stress that she was in after two years of the last war."

M.P.s took this with loud cheer and a grain of salt. Minister Cross cited acute German shortages: petroleum, iron, cotton, copper, wool, oils, fats. He reminded the House that there was in Germany an "abnormal desire to convert currency into goods from 'fear of future inflation. . . . Important steel works may have to suspend operations for lack of raw materials. Many factories making rubber are closing for lack of raw materials and others are working below capacity. There is a shortage of accessories. . . . The textile situation is acute."

After picking over this vague patchwork, M.P.s were still skeptical. But when they went home and dug down in their files, they found that Ronald Cross was probably not exaggerating:

> In 1914 Germany had 35 billion marks invested abroad. After two years of war (August 1916), she still had nearly that much, and found no trouble in getting credit abroad. Today Germany's foreign credit is practically nil. Anything she imports must be paid for in cash or barter. This difference more than offsets the fact that Germany can now trade with two countries which were her enemies in 1916 --Italy and Russia.

> To buy abroad without credit, a nation must have goods or gold to offer. In 1916 the Reichsbank alone had a gold reserve of 2,500,000,000 marks. Today highest estimate of published and secret gold reserves is one-half billion marks.

> In 1916 Germany produced 179 million tons of coal. Germany may produce as much this year as in 1938--186 million tons, highest production since 1913--but coal is Germany's largest single export commodity, and what is left at home is mostly commandeered for industrial uses for the manufacture of synthetic gasoline and rubber. Last week Berlin was shivering in a desperate fuel shortage.

> In 1916 queues and ration cards were in force as today; but delicacies were still obtainable.

> Compulsory labor service for men was not introduced until December 1916. This time both men and women were drafted on a large scale early in 1939, months before the war began. Compulsory labor, like rationing, may be a sign rather of sterner preparation than of greater weakness.

> In October 1916, the Hindenburg program for increased industrial and mining output was launched. That connoted a margin of productive capacity. This time German industries are producing at full capacity, can increase substantially only by finding fresh capital--and capital is scarce. There was also a severe labor shortage even before war began.

> Not to be overlooked in such calculations is another comparison. In 1916 Germany, fighting at Verdun and the Somme, burned up every day more materials than in the entire Franco-Prussian war. So far in this war Germany has fought only an in expensive Polish campaign, some minor air and sea battles. Germany's income may be as small as in 1916, but so far her expenses are far smaller.

> The Cross speech had two immediate effects. One was to intensify a Cross-for-the-Cabinet movement. The other took place in the Convocation of Canterbury (a bicameral assembly of the Church of England's clergy, which always meets concurrently with Parliament):

Lean, grey Dr. Ernest William Barnes, Anglican Bishop of Birmingham and one of England's great liberal Christians, recalled the words of St. Paul (in Romans 12:20): Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. In the Upper House of the Convocation, Dr. Barnes moved that the British Government be urged to relax the blockade so that foodstuffs could enter Germany. Sternly His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury replied: "Germany can provide food for its population. We must leave it to Germany to choose between providing food for its people or for its guns." Remarking that his colleagues seemed guided by practical rather than moral considerations, Dr. Barnes withdrew his motion.

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