UNHAPPY PLIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 191, 13 August 1940, Page 8

UNHAPPY PLIGHT.

NORWAY UNDER NAZIS. THREAT OF STARVATION. WELLINGTON, this day. "If any country starves it will be Norway," said a Norwegian-born resident of Wellington in discussing the effect of the war on Norway. The situation of Norway would 'be much worse than that o.f some of the Continental countries in which it was predicted there would be food shortages. Norway, he said, was a country of few internal resources, but had depended on its international commerce. The only food it had was plenty of fish, and though it had ample hydro-electrie power, it had imported all its coal from England. Ordinary winters in Norway were hard enough, and last winter had been particularly hard. With its sources of supply cut off by blockade, and the food which it had stored in anticipation of war seized by the Germans, the approaching winter would be worse than ever. Even before the invasion some foods were being rationed in Norway. Norway's mercantile marine, the third largest in the world, was no longer a source of income. One-tenth of the population, or 300,000 men, were sailors. Most of them had been cut off from their homes and, though they were still working, they were unable to send their earnings home. He did not kn-»w whether the whale fishery, which the Norwegians had conducted in the Antarctic till last summer, would continue next season. ' The speaker commented on the complete absence of news from Norway. The censorship imposed by the Germans had apparently been 'characteristically complete, for nothing seemed to have leaked out even through Sweden in the five months since the invasion. He had heard nothing of his relations in Norway since its conquest. It was impossible to send a message from New Zealand to them except through the Red Cross organisation, and then all that one was allowed to send was 25 words, including the address and the signature. He had refrained from doing even that for fear of directing the attention of the German invaders to his relations. I