The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH AND INCORPORATE The Evening News, Morning News. The Echo and The Sun. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930. CLOSING THE NET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 262, 6 November 1939, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH AND INCORPORATE The Evening News, Morning News. The Echo and The Sun.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930. CLOSING THE NET.

For the cause thai lacks assistance, For the icrong that veeda resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

United States ships, under the revised neutrality law, are prohibited from visiting nny ports in Germany, and any ports in countries contiguous to Geraiany, except Italy, Soviet Russia and Yugoslavia. Until now, United States ships, though prohibited from carrying munitions, could carry a wide range i<# products and manufactures useful, and some essential, in war. They could carry them to Germany, or to any other country, provided only that they could elude the British and French contraband control. The British control, according to official figures, had intercepted and detained, up to October 2S, more than 400,000 tons of cargo; the French, up to October 12, 150,000 tons. No doubt other cargoes "got through." But now one of the most important sources of supply will be cut off, except in so far as American ships voyage to Mediterranean and Black Sea ports, from which their cargoes, if intended for Germany and if they have escaped detection as contraband, will still need transport overland for long distances. Tho remaining sources of sea-borne supply are the Baltic States, including Russia, all Mediterranean States, and the countries of the Near and Far East and of South America.

What goods has Germany been receiving from the United States? Wartime figures are, of course, not available, but the statistics of 1938 afford an indication of the trade now cut off. Last year, of the total tonnage of all commodities, Germany imported 32 per cent from the Allies, and 7 per cent from the United States. America was an important source of supply in the following:— Cereals, 22 per cent of German imports; mineral oils, 24 per cent; metals, 23 per cent; fertilisers and animal foods, 32 per cent. In the same groups Allied countries supplied:—Cereals, 21 per cent; metals, 26 per cent; fertilisers, etc., 30 per cent. Tn addition, Allied countries supplied 60 per cent of German imports of coal, 37 per cent of textile fibres, and 12 per cent of meats and fats. All these — American and Allied both—are now cut off. It has been estimated that if contraband interception on . the high seas could be made complete, the total tonnage imported into Germany, by land or sea, would be reduced by 48 per cent. It cannot be made complete, but it will become increasingly severe* Even though Germany is believed to have accumulated stocks of essential wartime commodities, and though her supplies from Russia and some of tho other and smaller neutral countries are likely to increase, the | combined effects of deprivation of supplies from the Allied countries and the United States, and the contraband control, unceasingly vigilant, will be felt more and more. When military operations are conspicuous by their absence, the persistent use by the Allies of the economic weapon is easily overlooked. It cannot be overlooked in Germany.