An Objective Survey of Ecónomic Trends in the Reich; Food and Trade In two months the Reich has completed a carefully planned system of War Economy. The supreme controlling body, the Council of Ministers for Defence, has been reinforced by regional Defence Committees in each Army district. These bodies—which represent ihe civil authorities and not the Nazi Party—have authority to direct economic activity, and work in close 35 collaboration both with Army comi-manders and business organisations. In principle, at any rate, economic centralisation for war purposes—it is worth noting that there is a certain degree of special decentralization for Austria—has been carried through without removing the particular responsibility of private employers, states' "The Economist."
In practice, however, now that control over profits, prices and wages has been made so stringent, some doubt is being expressed as to whether private bankers, industrialists and merchants have still a function to perform. The economic journal "Der Duetsche Volkswirt" combated this view in a leading article on October 20, maintaining that War Economy depends more than ever on the private industrialist. The State had not and would not abolish private ownership of capital. The point was that Wer Economy required sacrifices in the shape of smaller private profits or even losses Gt would seem from Dr. Funk's October 16, speech that, pending industrial reorganisation, losses are to be spread over the whole community), and the final decision whether production should be expanded or con-rolled had necessarily to be made by the State in wartime. But, the article emphasised, the function and responsibility of the private employer remained.. The employer was admittedly compelled to cut wages to the 1936 level, but he was at the same time responsible for maintaining the efficiency of his workers unimpaired. So far employers had responded "magnificently."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.