This is where an objection may be raised. Someone might say: "That is all very well in theory, but only last year Germany started on a Four Year Plan to the execution of which all her national resources are being directed and which aims at making Germany economically independent and consequently isolating her from the rest of the world" This is right up to a point but the final conclusion is wrong for the following reasons.
The depression must have convinced the most doubting that the World War and the peace treaties which followed it have changed the whole aspect of the world. The industrialization especially of overseas countries proceeded at a pace hitherto unknown, and in Europe the newly formed states started a policy of economic independence in spite of their lack of equipment. But Germany changed most of all, She not only lost all her colonies in Africa and the Pacific, but also all capital invested abroad and her whole mercantile marine. The enormous reparations which the impoverished country was expected to pay led to a huge national debt, and, finally combined with similar circumstances overseas, led to the collapse of the international credit system. The drop in raw material prices and the rise in the number of unemployed in manufacturing countries were the first signs of the approach of a world crisis, The result of this international confusion was that the nations began to look to their own resources. Even countries which possessed huge territories overseas and had access to abundant supplies of raw materials sought to increase their independence. in order to acquire even temporary advantages in the international markets several countries resorted to devaluation of their currency, Germany, however, which had neither colonial possessions nor gold, could not follow in this path and has pleaded unremittingly for a restitution of normal international trade. Her efsequent demand for foreign raw materials, In order to secure the most important commodities Germany was obliged to increase the stringency of her foreign exchange restrictions and completely reorganize her economic policy. When it became obvious that sufficient supplies of raw. materials could not be obtained with these methods, and that it was no longer possible to wait for an improvement in exports, the German Government decided on a new line of action and inaugurated the Four Year Plan which aims at abolishing the present scarcity of foreign raw materials by producing new home-produced materials to take their place. Four Year Plan and Foreign Trade This large-scale production of new materials does not necessarily mean the end of international economic co-Operation. It must be realized that these methods of production are being accelerated on account of the existing shortage of natural raw materials. Germany would have developed the manufacture of cellul: wool, artificial rubber and spirit from coal even in a time of free world trade, and experiments in the production of these synthetic products are being made in other countries at the same time. The Four Year Plan is a perfectly normal stage in technical and industrial progress and the intensive propaganda which is being made in Germany for this scheme is easy to understand in view of the bitter experiences of the past.
Foreign trade is not being sacrificed io thus urge for economic independence. In a speech at the beginning of the year Herr Hitler said: "I want work and food for my people not temporarily, but firmly based on a solid system of production either in exchange with goods from other parts of the world, or, failing that, in exchange with our own products in the circulation of our own economic body. I am happy and we all are, whenever there is a rise in our foreign trade........We shall take every opportunity of strengthening our trade relations with other countries for nothing is farther from our intentions either economically or politically than to sever our connec-tins with the rest of the world or even to diminish them: on the contrary." Germany knows that the closest economic ce-operation with other countries is essential to her not only to guarantee her raw material supplies, but as an industrial end manufacturing country as well as a first class political power. It is ridiculous to state Four Year Plan or foreign trade as an alternative; it should be Four Year Plan and foreign trade,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.