DEMOCRATIC POOL OF WAR MATERIALS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 85, 12 April 1939, Page 8

DEMOCRATIC POOL OF WAR MATERIALS

Wars are won or lost not only by men and by money but also by food and by raw materials. Among the winning cards are oil, cotton, rubber, and base metals; and, among foods, wheat of course comes first. Therefore a country anticipating war must either produce, or must store, these and other vital commodities. Germany is credited with having enormous stocks of oil, cotton, rubber, and metals, and expects to seize Rumanian oil and wheat. In Britain, the question of wheat storage as a defence measure is at least half a century old, and in recent years a limited amount of storage has been done. American brains have now approached the "vital commodities" problem from, firstly, the wheat, cotton, rubber, and tin angle. Proceeding on the basis that Britain, Holland, and Belgium dominate the world's rubber and tin supplies, Senator Byrne proposes (and, it is stated, with the Washington Administration's approval) that the United States should make a politi-cal-economic arrangement with Britain, Holland, and Belgium whereby their rubber and tin, ansl America's surplus wheat and cotton, should be brought under a kind of pool, regulating prices and reserves. Britain, Holland, and Belgium would thus be able to accumulate warstocks of wheat and cotton, and j America war-stocks of rubber and tin, while regulated trade would go on. If such a pool could be arranged, to the exclusion of the aggressor Powers, certain obvious advantages would accrue to the democratic side. By such a reciprocating pool, the problems of a vast storage system could be better handled by four Governments- than would be the case if each Government, acting separately and competitively, were to start out on its own storage plan. Secondly, Belgium and Holland are key countries strategically, and it would be well to give them an economic as well as a military incentive to stand in with the other democracies. In a world crisis, Belgium's position in Africa and Holland's position north of Australia must never be forgotten. Again, the United States, although mostly selfcontained, is not well endowed with rubber and tin, and America's ability to munition those democracies which go into the firing-line will be stronger if America's rubber and tin supplies are built up before waxstarts, for thereafter transport might be difficult. Moreover, the building up of pool arrangements —of which the above is but an outline—might be the best way in which the Washington Administration can get round the Neutrality Act. Mr. Cordell Hull, United States Secretary of State, speaks of the project as the. exchange of "certain raw materials reciprocally desired for emergency stock purposes and. for such purposes only." Herein is foreshadowed the American "stop-Hitler" plan, "short of war." Even "arch-isola-tionists" are said to agree.