VASSALS IN TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 26, 30 July 1940, Page 6

VASSALS IN TRADE

Before the inevitability of war became clear to the whole world, attention was concentrated upon methods of finding a way out of a world economic impasse. Fear, selfpreservation, and selfishness had brought into being policies of eco-

nomic nationalism which were killing the hopes humanity entertained of great material advancement. In the production of materials and goods the world, through applied science and invention, had made wonderful progress, but the full fruits of this progress were not being gathered, because around every State there were high walls which hindered trade. Thus it was that there were food surpluses in primary producing countries and food shortages in industrialised States. The industrialised States could not sell the whole of their output, and yet smaller nations, not so advanced in manufacture, compelled their people to pay high prices for home-made goods. Britain sought to break this ring of economic nationalism by "negotiating a series of bilateral trade agreements; but the process had not gone far when war prospects and the necessity for re-armament compelled temporary abandonment of the task. The economic news received from Germany within the last fortnight and British comments thereon indicate that the Nazis aim to break down economic nationalism too. But their method will be different. The essence of the British plan was a gradual extension of trade by proving that it was mutually beneficial to the tradiing States. Agreements would be freely negotiated and there would be no exploitation of the weak by the powerful, but an open and profitable exchange. The Nazis have a different aim. They plan to enrich the Greater Reich by causing all 0 the States within the German living-space to work and trade for the benefit of the Prussian lord. The methods devised by Dr. Schacht before the war were ingenious. They consisted mainly in inveigling neighbouring countries to sell to Germany, and then forcing them to buy and keep on buying in order to obtain payment. Now these ingenious devices will be supplemented, as Herr Funk's statement shows, by more open compulsion. Such a scheme is quite consistent with the Nazi dream of world hegemony, but it is wholly opposed to the idea of free co-operation on which trade for the benefit of all who work and produce must be based.