* * * * Motorists and a great many other
people have read with considerable interest of Herr Hitler's plans for the mass- production of what is described . in headlines as " A £5o car." But is it a £50 car? Here the fine confusion of the German exchange rates leaves almost any answer possible. The vehicle is to cost in Germany 990 marks—" about £50 at the standard rate of exchange," says The Times Berlin correspondent. But the same correspondent, writing four days later of Germany's foreign trade, says it showed an adverse balance of 26,000,000 marks—" £2,200,000 at the official rate." It may be quite right to take a rate of 20 marks to the £ in one case and 12 in the other ; I apt_ not economist enough to decide, and I notice with some relief that the Presi- dent of the Board of Trade is as perplexed as I am, for he said candidly in the House on Tuesday that " the factor which should be employed for converting marks into sterling was a matter of opinion." A good deal of caution should clearly be exercised in. comparing German food-prices, for example, reckoned in marks, with English prices, in shillings and pence.
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