PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 10, 13 January 1941, Page 8

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

LIKELY IN NEAR FUTURE

BLOCKADE PRESSURE

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 11. The Minister of Economic Warfare, Dr. Hugh Dalton, speaking at Bishop Auckland, said none could doubt that in the next few months, perhaps even the next few weeks, Hitler would open a more active phase in the hostilities. Hitler could not afford to remain passive while his junior partner in crime was being hammered in Africa and Albania, on the seas and in the air. Hitler and Mussolini were both facing the steadily increasing pressure-of the blockade. Dr. Dalton said the information at his disposal convinced him that in many essential war materials Germany was already beginning to feel the pinch and would feel it more and more as the months went by. He mentioned rubber, copper, nickel, and other ferro alloys and wool and cotton as commodities to which his remarks applied. At the same time the Minister disclaimed complacency and warned his audience that they must expect a long war. It would not be possible to destroy in a short time what the Nazi warmongers had steadily accumulated over seven years, to. which must be added the stocks of valuable materials looted from the countries Germany had overrun. The Ministry of Econdmic Warfare would work in co-operation with the Navy and RiA.F. continually to intensify the economic war in all its forms. He paid tribute to the exploits of the R.A.F. bombers in adding to the Nazis' economic difficulties by their systematic and accurate blows at Nazi oil stocks and German industrial plants. , MEDICAL SUPPLIES TO FRANCE. Dr. Dalton rererred to the decision regarding certain supplies to be distributed by the American Red Gross in unoccupied France. "At President Roosevelt's request," he said, "Britain has decided to permit, subject to strict safeguards, the passage through our patrols of certain goods into unoccupied France. These goods will be limited to medical supplies in the strict sense which we have always allowed to pass through our blockade, to vitamin concentrates, preserved milk, and baby clothes. These will be distributed by .the agents the American Red Cross through children's clinics and hospitals. . < "There will be strict safeguards against the abuse of these arrangements. We reserve the right at any time to prevent further shipments if the conditions which we have laid down are not observed. "I am satisfied that this concession will make no significant breach in the blockade. There is no general relaxation of our controls. Indeed, I am glad to tell you that only in the last few days the Navy has picked up a number of would-be blockade runners."