"STRANGULATION."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 224, 22 September 1938, Page 10

"STRANGULATION."

GERMANY AND CZECHS. USE OF TRADE WEAPON. (By SENEX.) The report that the German shipowners of river services,.:especially on the. Elbe, have refused to handle Czech goods because of the Sudetenland issue i* a move which recalls the threat* uttered in Germany earlier this year that Czechoslovakia would be "starved out."

Behind the Nazis' approach to the question is the cardinal assumption that the Ancshiuss with Austria has placed the Czechs at Germany's mercy. More than once this question w;*.s raised during the Anglo-French conversations in London last May. In point of fact, it would not be easy for Germany to bring the Czechs «to the brink of starvation. For the pursuit of a vigorous policy of agricultural protection has built up a good section of the Czech farming industry into a position where it is not only able to supply all national' needs, but to send small surpluses abroad as well. This has been the case in the field of wheat, barley and oats; in rye, potatoes, dairy products and vegetables the Czechs can virtually feed themselves. They have still been forced to import about onequarter of their maize, but they are one of the chief exporters of beet sugar and hops. They have almost enough meat, particularly beef, but must import pi»s and vegetable oils. That is a strongly organised position which the Czechs occupy upon the agricultural economic front. Germany Her Chief Market. But against thfe position must be set the Czech weakness in other fields. Czechoslovakia depends to a great extent on imports of raw materials. She i* well placed in respect of supplies of timber, she has large supplies of brown coal, and produces fair quantities of certain minerals. But ehe ha« to bring half her supplies of iron ore from abroad, and she imports large quantities of raw cotton, wool and mineral oils. This position must be considered in relation to the fact that Germany is Czechoslovakia's principal market and the source of her import supplies. Last yeax Germany took <ilir.ost 21 per cent of Czech exports and supplied 19 per cent of her imports. Germany hou-?ht the bulk of the timber exports, and, with Austria, took virtually the whole of Czechoslovakia's foreign shipments of coal. But this trade is expected to jro to the Ruhr now, in any event, so that nothing that Germany could do in the field of coal could make much difference. And it must be remembered that if Germany imposed suffering on the Czechs by economic boycott, trade is a two-sided affai-. and German shipments of Toods to the Czech State would suffer. In 1937 Germany's exports, were about 5.011.000.000 marks, of which Czechoslovakia took 150.000.000 marks.

The .difficulty of success in a course aimed at what the French memoranda presented at the London eonferemp termed "the economic strangulation of Czechoslovakia," was held to have l>een recognised by the Nazi* three, months ago when trade negotiations conducted in Berlin resulted in an agreement designed to cover the new economic conditions created by the inclusion of Austria in the Reich. The understanding covered the mutual exchange of •roods, and the tariff issue «u left in abeyance, to be dealt with at a later meeting. But with the creation by Germany of a new crisis in the SudetenJand. considerations of this kind have vanished, and Germany now has turned to her most powerful weapon against the Czechs, the fact that this democracy is a landlocked State and that she w dependent upon her neighbours for the transit of her goods to their markets. Needs Other Nations' Help. Germany, Rumania. Hungary and Poland are more than next-door nations, they arehighways to the peoples beyond them." Loss of their goodwill must inevitable prejudice Czech commerce. And the bulk of that commerce passes, of necessity, through Germany, and fierman-Austria, on the way to Hamburg and Trieste. Some week* ago there wa* discussion of the possibility of higher rates being charged for Czech goods, thus waging war in a legal but still highly unpleasant manner. Yet even this serious threat, which has now materialised in the "refusal" of German shipping firms on the Elbe to handle Czechoslovak freight and the possibility of the closing of the Czech's chief outlet to the north of Europe, is not without its modifying factors. Successfully to carry out this manoeuvre the Germane need the collaboration of three other nations—of Poland because of the possibility, of access to the ports of Gdynia and Danzig, Hungary because of the fact that there is a road through that country to Fiume . and Trieste, and Rumania, because shipments in that direction can reach the Black Sea ports. Especially is it necessary that Poland should view the case sympathetically because of the facilities of the thriving and newly-built Gdynia. Hungary's collaboration might be obtained because Hungary is economically dominated by Germany and because ehe has little goodwill for the Czechs in any event, as Czechoslovakia has a Hungarian minority as well as a Bohemian German one. Rumania is of less importance, but Germany has not been sure of Poiand's attitude; the Foreign Minister, Colonel Beck, recently declared that any harm to the Czechs would'be against the interest* of Poland, and there are even reports that the Czechs were offered the facilities of Gdynia last month, in anticipation of such a blow as has now been directed at them.