FOOD AND BLOCKADE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 208, 4 September 1940, Page 7

FOOD AND BLOCKADE

PLIGHT OF EUROPE MILLIONS MAY WANT The Nazis having so often boasted that they arc able to withstand t lie British blockade, which they once termed "a joke," are to be taken at their word by the British Government and given the opportunity to prove their claims; They have overrun much of Europe and have explained that because of their superior powers Ihcy arc called upon to govern it. Those powers are likely to be tested to the full by next spring. Unhappily for Hitler and Goering there exists evidence that food supplies arc not assured however long the Avar may last, and the evidenco eomes from Germany. It is a publication of the German Institute of Business Research, issued in Berlin, and it shows the situation in the German-occupied and German-owned territory before the drive into France, took place. Millions Unfed. This publication, which reduces the position to cold statistics, show's that Germany proper (what is term ed .''the" old Reich'') raises only 83 per cent, of the foodstuffs which she needs and that in all the lands which she has occupied since Hitler started his expansion drive only Poland and Denmark, in normal times, are .able to .produce more than enough food for themselves. Austria, for instance, produces only 75 per cent, of her needs, the Sudetenland SO per cent., Norway 43 per cent., the Netherlands 06 per cent., and Belgium 51 per cent. France has been roughly self-suffieicnt. Even in the countries where there has been an export surplus in <th,e past it has been very small. In Poland it has been only ,5 per cent., in Denmark 3 per cent. Consequentl3 r the Reich has normally to draw upon the. Balkans to eke out its food supplies. From this, territory it has usually obtained huge quantities of foodstuffs, even before it adopted the tactics of invasion. Today.. if circumstances Avere normal, it would need food enough from Eastern Europe to feed over-,20,000,-000 people in German-dominated Europe (excluding France)'who can not be supported by their own "soil. Fall in Supplies. But circumstances- are not normal. There has been a severe winter arid a rainy spring with., severe floods. Consequently supplies will be down. International grain'authorities calculated last month that whereas the wheat export of the Balkans (Rumania, with Hungary, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia) is usually 80,000,000 bushels, this year it is likely to be more than 25,000,000 bushels. Floods in the Danube delta injured Rumania's crop, and 50 per cent, of it will be grown in Bessarabia,'which has now gone to Russia. Consequently the prospects of imports from the east are reduced. Yet even in good times the crop of Eastern Europe would feed only abJfut 5,000,000 of the 22,000,000 people who have to be supplied. Nor will the surplus of Poland and Denmark continue this year; in fact both lands are more likely to prove a burden because of the way' they have been plundered, by the Nazis. Must Use Reserves. In these circumstances what can Germany do? She can dig into her stores, accumulated for such a time as this. It is known that she stored food consistently for four or five years before the wai began, much of it apjjarently being put into abandoned mines and similar places safe against air attack. Of recent years German wheat harvests have been about 15 per cent. beloAV her needs from season to season, and she has been able to maintain steady purchases abroad and save the grain The Nazis claim that they have food enough for four or five years. This estimate is rejected in most quarters, but it is held as likely that the German food supplies might last the population of the old Reich a year with careful rationing and with sufficient new crops. Where the plan has gone astray is in the acquisition of such a large amount of new territory without breaking the British blockade. With the European harvest only two-thirds of the normal size, and Avith between 15,000,000 and' 22,000,000 people in the occupied lands foi Avhom there is no food at all what comes from these stores, the position of Germany might seem serious. But CA r cn that is not the end. For there is Italy, which also lacks food to feed herself, and which is a competitor for the Balkan supplies, and France, which is no longer able to feed herself and which has had her economy thrown out of gear bv the Nazi invasion.