| The New Europe | ||
| Vol. IV, No. 51. | [registered for transmission at] the inland newspaper rate |
4 October 1917 |
The Economic Weapon
It is becoming increasingly clear that, whatever may happen in the near future on the battle-fronts, the Allies possess in their immense concentration and control of economic resources a weapon which must ultimately, if they hold together, decide the war in their favour. Indeed, they could win the war by this means even if (absit omen!) they did not all hold together: for the Western Powers alone would be sufficient to drive the weapon home. This conclusion is not everywhere accepted, it is true, by our pessimists, some of whom are so committed to the invincibility of the German military machine and the impossibility of reaching a “decision,” that they seem to regard Germany’s economic resources as a sort of widow’s cruse, subject to miraculous renewal. But the Germans themselves know better, and it may be worth while to draw attention to some recent German evidence on the subject.
The German military authorities, as we now know, had not thought out beforehand the economic implications of a protracted war with the seas closed against them. A conference was indeed summoned at the Ministry of the Interior in May, 1914, at which representatives of commerce, agriculture, industry and handicraft, were present, to discuss the economic problems arising out of war. This gathering, as was stated by a speaker at the meeting of the executive of the German Trade Conference (Handelstag) on 9 August, 1916, “looked forward confidently, as regards economic preparedness, to a war even with England as an enemy and with a complete blockade of the North Sea.” But the published report goes on to recall the fact that this confidence was based on an estimate “of a war of one year’s duration at the outside.” When war was launched at the end of July, 1914, there were large stocks of every kind of war material in hand. Moreover, as has been pointed out by Professor Tyszka of Berlin in his recently published book on German fiscal policy, the end of July is the period of the year when German grain stocks happen
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