'HITLER’S VASSAL

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 283, 24 August 1940, Page 20

'HITLER’S VASSAL

Italy’s War Resources COMPETITOR WITH REICH What contribution can Italy make iu the economic sense toward the communal venture in brigandage upon which Hitler and Mussolini have launched their two countries? asks H. P, S, Matthews in the London “Daily Telegraph.” As recently as last December Ciano told the Italian Chamber that Italy would not he ready for war for three years. From the beginning of the Abyssinian campaign in the autumn of 11)35 to the end of the Spanish civil war in the spring of last year, Italy had been interruptedly at war. Though the scale of these operations had been incomparably smaller than that of the present conflict, the drain on Italian resources, increased by the far from negligible effect of sanctions, had been constant. During nine months of “non-belliger-ency” and “pre-belligerency” Italy has done what she could to prepare herself for a struggle of short duration. She has laid in such stocks of oil and metals as her not very substantial reserves of gold and foreign exchange would permit; and she has been helping Germany to circumvent the Allied blockade. It has been entirely because of Italy that Germany has been able to carry on, even if only to a limited extent, her trade with the South Americah continent. With the entry of Italy into the war almost the only loophole in the Allied blockade is stopped. Lacks Vital Materials.

■ln the opinion of Goebbels, a country which would make war under modern conditions must dispose of adequate supplies of six raw materials—coal, oil, rubber, cotton, iron and copper. Italy is wholly or largely deficient in every one of these six vital materials. I shall discuss later the implications of Italy’s lack of coal. Her production of natural oil is negligible ; she has neither cotton nor rubber ; of the 2,300,000 tons of steel which she consumes in a normal year only 500,000 tons are yielded from Italian ore; domestic production of copper represents only one-twentieth of peacetime requirements. Mussolini’s Government has done what it can to remedy these deficiencies by encouraging the production of substitutes and by exploiting alternative sources of power. By harnessing the country’s abundant water-power the amount of electric current generated has been increased four and a half times since 1922. Italy claims to possess the world’s most up-to-date plant for the production of synthetic oil by the hydrogenation of coal; she is the third largest producer of staple fibre—synthetic textiles —ranking only after Germany and Japan; she has established factories .for the produetion of synthetic rubber. But the self-sufficiency campaign, while It has made Italy less dependent on imports for certain of her raw materials, has actually had the paradoxical effect of increasing her dependence on imported coal, from which synthetic oil and rubber are produced Four-fifths Imported.

Italy’s consumption of coal in peacetime is, roughly, 15,000,000 tons per annum, of which only about one-fifth is mined at home. Of the remaining 12,000,000 tons, the greater part would in any event have come from Germany; but as recently as the beginning of this year the Italian Coal Monopoly placed contracts for 4,000,000 tons of South Wales coal. Germany, with the resources of conquered Poland at her disposal, can easily fill Italy’s needs, provided that it is possible to transport the coal. In April she succeeded in delivering to Italy by rail all the coal which, before the intensification of the blockade, would have gone by way of Rotterdam and Gibraltar. With the stopping of supplies from South Wales, Italy required still more German coal. Germany may be able to keep Italy supplied with coal, but she can do so only by subjecting her transport system, already sorely tried, to a further considerable strain.

For supplies of oil Italy depends almost wholly on imports, for the domestic production of natural oil, even if Albania is included, amounts to barely 200,000 tons a year. Even when synthetic production—upon which Italy embarked only four years ago—has been taken into account, it is clear that only a bare fraction of the country’s needs can be covered from domestic sources. Supplies Must Be Shared. Italy normally imports between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 tons of oil, about three-quarters of which comes from the Western Hemisphere. Even the 600,000 tons which Italy receives annually from Rumania would be cut off by an effective Allied blockade, for it is shipped by way of the Dardanelles. When Italy’s reserve stocks of oil have ■been exhausted, she will depend oti such Russian and Rumanian supplies as can be brought by land er up the Danube —methods of transportation which Germany already finds far from sufficient. What is true of oil is true also of cotton, copper, tin, and, to a lesser extent, of steel. She will soon have to look for supplies to areas where Germany is already finding it extremely difficult to meet her own needs.

The only important contributions which Italy will continue to make to Germany’s supplies of war materials—a contribution which she has already been making during the period of “nonbelligerency”—are of mercury, of which she produces nearly half the world’s store, and sulphur. For the vital alloys necessary for the production of high-grade steel, Italy must turn to the same insufficient sources of supply as Germany. The 50,000 tons of aluminium which Italy hopes to produce next year from domestic supplies of bauxite will be barely adequate for her own needs. (French resources must now be added to Italian tore.) . Becoming a Liability.

In the matter of foodstuffs Italy is more fortunately placed. 'Thanks to Mussolini’s campaign for an increased wheat acreage—“the battle of the grain”—the country is now able to grow sufficient quantities of wheat, in a good year, for her requirements, and she actually has a surplus of rice for export. But the level of wheat production is not sufficient for the accumulation of stocks, and if. as seems probable. the harvest this year is much below normal, there may be difficulties later. As her existing stocks of all materials are exhausted, she will become an increasing liability Io Germany as she seeks to replenish them from sources of supply which were insufficient, for Germany even when Italy still had access to overseas markel>.