FAMINE FOR EUROPE FEARED

Evening Star, Issue 23650, 9 August 1940, Page 4

FAMINE FOR EUROPE FEARED

GERMANS' SHARP PROBLEMS DISORGANISATION IN OCCUPIED COUNTRIES Day after day reports of the grim winter ahead for Europe arc printed in the foreign news. In (lie struggle to unify Europe under Nazi domination, it begins to appear. Hitler may bring the scourge of famine and all it -means to the (hntinent in a form and on a seaie which lias not been known since the Black Death. The situation to-day is due to two tilings, one the deliberate policy of the Nazis, and the other the fact that luck has turned against them. The first tiling is the ’disorganisation in such countries as Boland and Denmark after the German occupation. The huge population transfers in Poland, the attempt to resettle whole areas, and the massing of the Jews into a special reserve. have helped to create economic confusion there. That mass famine conditions are near in Poland has long been known to the world.

The short-range policy of plunder, seen in operation in Denmark, lias helped to aggravate the situation. This lino of action suggests that the Nazis are very conscious that they are fighting against time, and that they are staking everything on winning their campaign before the winter. On no other ground is it possible to explain the destruction of Danish economy as a food reserve for the sake of immediate gains. On top of tin's will be felt the effects of the last terrible winter. Both of Germany’s main outside sources of food supply. Russia and south-eastern Europe, have been affected by this winter, and from both •of them food will be available in diminished quantities. The 1940 harvests'in the southeastern countries are likely to lie much reduced. In Hungary the year is expected to he as bad ns. if not worse than. 1929, when .‘JO per cent, of the wheat harvest was lost. In Northern Yugoslavia there wore similar had conditions. Bulgaria and Rumania were more fortunate, but still the figures will he down.

The recently-conquered territories may suffer most of all. Colonel William J. Donovan, president of the Paderewski Relief Fund. recently stated that starvation has already undoubtedly existed for several months among Poles. And a survey of expected conditions in Western European countries has been made by Mr Nat. C. Murray, who. as chief statistician for the United States Department of Agriculture. directed a study of the effect of the World War on farm production. Mr Murray points out that Belgium, with a population of 8,400,000, normally lias imports nine times greater, by volume, than her exports. She imported 70 per cent, of her wheat, 50 per cent, of her cereals, and 80 per cent, of her barley. In meat the production was 10 per cent, short of her needs, and in sugar 15 per cent, short. In addition she had to import fish, fruit, coffee, and live-stock feed. Normally the population of the Netherlands is 67 per cent, self-suffici-ent. Two-thirds of the wheat needed lias come from abroad, 50 per cent, of the barley, 40 per cent, of the sugar. Fruit, coffee, and sugar also are shipped by foreign lands. The country’s strength has been its past export of 60 per cent, of its butter production.

Norway, with almost- 3,000,000 people, is . only 43 per cent, self-sufficient in food', 92 per eent. of its rye being imported, and virtually all its sugar. The fishing industry caught 2,500,000,0001 b of fish a year and about one-fourth of it was exported. But the fishing industry has been disrupted by the invasion. ' Agricultural production in all countries has also been adversely effected by the war. Alobilisatlons have created labour shortages and there is a widespread shortage of fertilisers. It will be remembered that the Germans sought to strengthen their food front by sending large numbers of Poles to tlie Reich to work on the land. In April the United States Department of Agriculture said that the results were likely to he unfavourable. The Polish field hands, it was said, were used to cruder instruments of agriculture than they found on the mechanised German farms. Aloreover, despite the drive for food self-sufficL ency the Germans still have a heavy deficiency in meat (home production of which in turn depends on imported feeding stuffs), edible fats, anti oils. German live stock, like Danish live stock, is dependent on oil-seed cake which is now cut off by the blockade.

German dairy output is endangered by the same factor, and' as German food rations are already sub-standard in quality and the countries the Nazis have taken over are a food liability, the position is marching on to the desperate. To the other liabilities will soon be added that of Italy, which also lacks essential supplies. The drastic winter, which played havoc outside Germany, has also dam* aged the crops iri the Reich, especially greens. The potato’crop has been attacked by the Colorado beetle, according to British information, and Iherc has been a troublesome Outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. It may also ho recalled that tho growth of tilo Gorman Air Force and development of the fortified zones was accompanied' by a loss of cultivated land—about 7 per cent, of the total in the Reich. Finally there is the problem of phosphates, of which three-fifths used to come from abroad, and of providing a balanced supply of plant food for the field crops. The danger facing Europe and' the Reich (for famine on the borders of Germany will inevitably lead to dire penalties in Germany as well) may be expressed in another way. Belgium, Nonvav. and Holland a lope used to import 70.000.000 bushels of wheat a year. That was equivalent to 37 per cent, of the Australian wheat production in 1937-38. Tho wheat surplus this year is going to be confined' to a few countries, such as Canada, the United Slates, and Australia. How are the Germans going to fill the food needs of the conquered lands?