FRANCE: Cold Christmas

France’s Government had long put off telling the French people the facts of France’s economic life. Now it could no longer conceal them. To conserve coal, electricity in Paris was cut off for two days a week. To save meat, butchers were allowed to open their shops only two days, over the weekend. Drastic gasoline cuts made taxis a rarity. Bread was harder to get than at any time since World War I. The reason for all this: beginning Oct. 15, France will have no dollars to buy the things which she has not been able to provide for herself. By that time, the last dollar of established credits, the last ounce of convertible gold, will be spent.

Just what would lack of dollars mean to Frenchmen? Each month France has been using 5,500,000 tons of coal. But she has been producing only 4,000,000 tons. After October France can no longer buy the extra 1,500,000 tons a month from the U.S. French industrial production will drop 50%; French homes will have no coal at all.

France consumes 7,000,000 tons of wheat each year, usually grows 6,700,000 tons of it herself. This year drought cut the French yield to 3,300,000 tons. Without dollars to buy wheat abroad, Frenchmen will have little bread, their basic food. The bread ration has already been cut to 200 grams a day (75 grams lower than the lowest ration during the German occupation). Probable November level: 150 grams (less than four average U.S. slices) daily.

Well aware of France’s and Europe’s need, the U.S. Government rushed a program of emergency aid.