The prices quoted for French shares do not appear to reflect the fear of a German victory, or at least the consequences of a German victory. These consequences, according to opinions expressed privately in French financial circles, would be the extinction of French industry and finance, "It Germany wins, French industry will become a thing of the past," one economic expert with wide banking connections told me at Vichy, "and the French financier will be as extinct as the dodo bird.
"We will become an agricultural nation, supplementing agriculture with small crafts such as manufacture of wines, perfumes, bags and fashions. Under these conditions we would. of course, be a second-rate power. No strictly agricultural ni tion can be a first-class power toda:
"It Germany wins, our money, that of all the other countries of Europe. will be based on the mark and cleared in Berlin i Germany loses, I feel international currency will be based on the American dollar." tion, Man of Prudence General Levelling Down Darlan is a man of prudence, Baudoin, shoddy mystic of the Bank 6t Indo-China and the Secretary-General of Reynaud's War Cabinet, had no difficulty in persuading the essentially timorous Darlan that "all was lost" if further resistance was offered to Germany.
Faced with rea! danger and the prospect of personal sacrifice, Darlan went over to the new school body and soul, He became one of the most eager and determined advocates of capitulation, though he kept cautiously out of the limelight, His broad smile and manifest delight on June 17, when Marshal Petain told the nation that an armistice had been requested, caused scandal even in the shameless atmosphere of Bor-
What would the effect of a German victory be on the French standard of living, in his opinion "There would be a general levelling down, The wealthy would disappear. The peasant's position would not be changed much, nor would the position of the small shopkeeper, except that he would be handling German goods, under German regulations. The lot of labour would undoubtedly be very hard, however, with strict regimentation, tens of thousands of them being sent to the fields and probably many other tens of thousands to Africa."
The French national debt today is placed somewhere between 900 and Fr. 1,000 milliards. deux.
Tt is typical of Darlan's character ihat two days later, Hitler having shown no undue haste in responding to Marshal Petain's appeals, and some doubts as to the outcome of the whole business were spreading through Bordeaux, Darlan sent an order to all French ships to con. tinue fighting with the last ounce of energy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.