Oct, 12.
It has been part of the German propaganda to endeavour to spread the impression that, because of the heavy damage they allege has. been done to British industrial and manufacturing sections, Great Britain is unable fo maintain her export trade. Even in the For East the enemy has sedulously sought fo create the same impression, and it is only' quite recently that an enquirer for mining machinery was assured, to his complete astonishment, that Britain was not only in the market with such goods but quite ready' to supply them. The reason why the Germans cre active in spreading such lies is obvious. In the first case it is part of the general campaign to scck to do as much. damage as possible to British interests, and, in the second, it is a means by which the Germans seek' to impress upon neutrals the veracity of their wild claims as to the amount their air force has wrought Nothing could be farther from the truth than any German claims that either by bombing, or by their so-called blockade, which exists in name only—any great deal of harm has been done to the British export trade.
Reuters, in a survey which appears in another column, instances a number of representative cases, where, though bombs have done damage, they have not succeeded in putting the establishments so harmed out of commission. Indeed the evidence is that. temporary dislocation has resulted, but that. in most cases has only lasted a few days. A brewery hit by six bombs is still able to carry on; a textile merchant, though bombed, able to execute 99 per cent. of his orders; a Thames-side works, bombed eight times in. three weeks, was able two days after the last raid to' get its output back to 70 per cent. of normal with the balance being] decreased daily. The truth of the matter is} that, through Hitler's dallying for a year, such ce-operation was arranged between manufacturers that they were able to spread their risks, duplicate their machinery, and circumvent destruction in other ways. "Thus! ne works within 30 hours of almost complete destruction was able to transfer its
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.