OCR Text |
Show NEWS REVIEW British Economy Menaced; Traffic Fatalities Slashed Like a kaleidoscope in which several apparently unrelated chips of glass shift suddenly from a meaningless jumble of color into an understandable pattern, so at least some of the whirling segments of the world's intricate. economy have be-gun be-gun dropping into place to form a coherent unit. For masses of Americans, to whom economics could be boiled down into a matter of "you either have it or don't have it," the international hysteria of monies, credits, loans, spending, spend-ing, inflation at home and crises abroad began to take on some meaning. Within a matter of hours came a sudden spate of developments, starting in England and ending up on virtually every farm in America. Having no ostensible connection on the surface, each fresh turn of events was linked inexorably with preceding occurrences. To philosophers, as well as economists, econo-mists, it was a perfect chain of causes and effects. This is how it began: i 1 Field Marshal Viscount Mont- gomery, chief of the British imperial im-perial general staff, suddenly was called home from a tour of the Far East. Montgomery returned to Great Britain to advise the government concerning drastic curtailment of the nation's military establishment, cost of which (3.6 billion dollars a year) could no longer be borne by the threadbare British economy. 2 In London, Labor government . officials, no longer able to stave off a frank admission, told the world that England's plight was desperate, that the tight little isle was on the sharp brink of ruin. Prime Minister Clement Attlee, assailed as-sailed with charges of "bungling" and "failure to act," nevertheless was given a vote of confidence when he sketched out a plan which would have British miners work an extra hour each day to increase England's coal production, key pillar in its economic structure. The British crisis was born out of four factors: Shortage of American Amer-ican dollars (the U. S. loan will have been used up by Christmas); shortage of coal (not enough to permit per-mit industries to operate and rebuild re-build stockpiles); shortage of manpower, man-power, and inflation. 3 Morally weakened under the threat of domestic political and economic crises, the London stock market broke swiftly, as sharp selling sell-ing hit all sections. And, although U. S. state department depart-ment observers scoffed at the idea that developments in England had produced a reaction over here, it appeared to be something more than coincidence that: 4 Shortly after London stocks . broke, wheat prices on the Chicago Chi-cago board of trade showed losses of nine to nine and one-fourth cents a bushel, while corn and oats dropped off from three to four cents. Industrial stocks also receded somewhat some-what on the New York stock exchange. ex-change. At the same time, it became apparent ap-parent that the U. S. government, faced with high prices of grain and food and continued shortages abroad, would issue a call for another an-other big wheat crop this year instead in-stead of reducing wheat production goals as was planned previously. As the picture began to take shape, the dominating motif appeared ap-peared to be economic insecurity. |