10 OCTOBER 1931, Page 11

Through European Eyes

[Nothing could be more useful for Great Britain than to see how her difficulties are regarded abroad. We shall therefore publish during the next few weeks a representative selection of extracts translated from the Continental Press.] "ONE of the principal reasons for the collapse of the English currency is to be found in the disequilibrium between the nominal value and the effective purchasing power of sterling. The currency was revalued 100 per cent., but wages and prices were not reduced—owing to the weakness of the Governments in power—proportionately. If now prices and wages are going to increase, the present grave crisis will lead to one graver still, and inflation will be inevitable. In England there are eleven million workers, ,every third man being unemployed. The discipline and patriotic and religious spirit of the masses is no longer as solid as it was before 1914, and the transformation of the economic and industrial life of the country is bound to mean the -severest sacrifices for the population. The English will have to reduce their mode of living in the same proportion as the other European peoples of the Continent. There is no other way out and it is an experiment fraught with the greatest difficulty."—La Stampa

(Turin).