Europe’s Food Problem

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23094, 9 August 1940, Page 8

Europe’s Food Problem

;; Mr Arthur Greenwood’s statement to the House ' of Commons bn economic warfare and the press : : interview given by the former American Ambassador to Belgium, Mr John Cudahy,' are evidence of a growing anxiety, already perceptible v>.in wireless propaganda, over Europe’s food problem. It is now generally realised that there , is no possibility of tho war coming to an end in the coming winter.. Though Europe is normally about 90 per cent, self-sufficient in food, several factors, including a bad season, shortage of - labour, the campaign in the Low Countries and France, and extensive use of animal fats and . cereals for the production 'of explosives and • power alcohol, have combined to create a shortage which must. faring famine and disease in the winter unless there is relief from out- ‘ side. And it is to be feared that even relief ' measures on thfe largest scale conceivable cannot fully cope with the problem. The German Government’s policy is frank and cynical and follows the* general lines of its policy in i-German-occupied Poland. Although in Norway, the Low Countries, and France it has seized stocks of food which were sufficiently large to ' enable these countries to maintain a reasonable standard of living until the next harvest, it ad- ' Tnite no responsibility for the situation it has ' created and does not intend to take measures to r relieve it. The German view is that countries defeated in war must themselves deal with the economic consequences of i their defeat. The 1 German propaganda organisation, indeed, is beginning to find in the prospect of famine a ■:% useful means of uniting Europe against Great ; Britain and is now engaged in telling Europe r and the world that the sole cause of the food shortage is the British blockade. The only i country with sufficient organising capacity and economic resources to organise relief services in ■Ai Europe is, of course, the United States; and siroftdy proposals are being made that the t growing export surpluses of the Americas •> should be.used to avert disaster in Europe. J TljierhTis Ihus the probability that the British } ,sr{byprnment will be placed in a difficult pbsipertainly does not_ desire that the 1 ; TblM4sade should be a means of starving popular

tions with which Great Bmain has no quarrel. On the other hand. Great Britain is engaged in a struggle for her very existence and cannot be expected to weaken, for humanitarian reasons, what is for the moment her most effective weapon in that struggle. She cannot be expected to lift the blockade in favour of noncombatant populations unless she has the most reliable guarantees that food passing through, the blockade does actually reach non-combatant populations and, having reached them, is not made an excuse for further pillaging of their resources by Germany. Mere promises by Germany are not enough, particularly as it is now announced that control of occupied areas is being transferred from the German army authorities to the Nazi Party. Nothing less would suffice than that the actual distribution of relief should be in the hands of reputable neutrals. Whether Germany will allow neutrals to enter occupied areas is perhaps doubtful, partly because they are potentials dangerous witnesses of Nazi methods and partly because their presence tends to defeat Nazi efforts to prevent reliable news from reaching subject populations. It was three months before Mr Herbert Hoover’s Commission on European Relief could get permission to send even a handful of Americans to occupied Poland; and it would appear that the movements of most, of these have been severely restricted. It seems desirable, however, that the approach to the German Government should be made without delaj-, if only for the purpose of fixing the responsibility for the European food situation and turning the edge of German propaganda.