HUNGER IN EUROPE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 139, 8 March 1941, Page 10

HUNGER IN EUROPE

In the United States there is an organization known as the National Committee for the Five Small Democracies, with Mr. Hoover at its head, which wishes to send foodstuffs to Finland, Norway, Belgium, Holland and central Poland. It may seem strange that Denmark does not figure in the list, because that country has been despoiled, but probably it had larger reserves upon whicfi to draw, although the process will destroy the industries on which the economic life of the nation was based. The British people are anxious that these little countries should not suffer, but the question of permitting food supplies to be passed through the blockade is by no means an easy one to deal with. Under strict supervision—and it will be remembered that it was his success in feeding Belgian civilians during the last war that first brought Mr. Hoover prominently before the American people —it might be possible to ensure that all the food imported went solely to the afflicted people and not to the Germans. But, if that course were followed, it would leave in the hands of the enemy the huge supplies that they have commandeered, and so assist them to prolong the war.

The duty to feed the peoples in the countries over-run is clearly one for the Nazi authorities, and on more than one occasion they have asserted that they will be able to provide for them. The obvious course is to insist that they do it. It has been stated that it is the fear of being cut off from overseas sources of essential foods that has confirmed General Franco in his determination to keep Spain out of the war. The British authorities have expressed their intention to assist neutral countries to maintain their supplies of food, and they did not hesitate to divert to Santander more than one shipload when disaster overtook that Spanish centre recently. But the blockade is a most effective weapon in this grim struggle, and it must be used to the full. There is no lack of sympathy for the peoples who have fallen under the heavy yoke of the Nazis, but, as one London journal put it: “It would be false humanitarianism to prolong the war by helping Hitler to feed those whom he has deprived and enslaved.”