PLUNDERED BY GERMANS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 September 1940, Page 8

PLUNDERED BY GERMANS

■' . - .y "' : v CONQUERED NATIONS’ PLIGHT. “NEW ORDER” IN PRACTICE -' ■. '■'" ■ ■■■ J '■ [BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.] RUGBY, September 20. The plundering by Germans of the countries they have enslaved', is discussed in “The Times,” which notes < that Rumania celebrated her adhe- : sion to the Axis by rationing the con- : sumption of the bread of her people, ; on the pretext of a poor harvest. The real reason, it says, is that the Nazi war machine requires to be fed rnore ; and more at the expense of 'the , countries it has enslaved. From Rumania, it expects corn as well as oil, and to supply the com, the people of Rumania must go on short com- ( mons. Remarking that the procedure varied, country to country, and de- > scribing the open desolation and enslavement of Czechoslovakia and Poland, “The Times” says: In the more recently conquered Scandinavia, the lo’w countries and France, where it was felt necessary for a time to present a less-forbidding face, different tactics were necessary. The methods employed were those of a card-sharper rather than a highway robber, but “whatever the method employed, the result is the same. The real wealth of the subjugated peoples finds it way to Germany. What has occurred in all these countries is only a demonstration of the kind of “new order” Germany seeks to establish m Europe. No other people are to have any independent life, or will of their own. All the economic resources of the Continent are to be enlisted to supply the German machine of conquest. Herr Funk has explained that the standard of living of conquered peoples must be' reduced to maintain the standard of living in Germany. “For those countries, who have so far escaped German domination, the warning is plain. For us, there is equally a plain lesson. Since eveiything the subjugated peoples produce for themselves, or import from abroad, is at the disposition of their German masters, the blockade must be drawn tighter and tighter. The recent extension of the navicert system s°ems to be working effectivelj, backed as it is by regulations, ensuring that facilities at British ports shall be available only to shipowners who conform to the system. “These regulations have now been strengthened by a revival of the blacx list of ships, which will be denied all facilities and refused navicerts. ft will be an offence for any person to transact business with any shipowner named in this list. The object of the system is to shut off trade with the outside world from the. whole a rea controlled by Germany and Italy. Other countries, from which goods might find a way without difficulty into this area, are being rationed to ensure that they do not receive m° r . e supplies than are required for their own needs. v . “This rationing system must inevitably raise problems of real difficulty, as in the case of oil 'imports for Spain,' concerning which an agreement has just been reached, but these problems have to be'faced. We are fighting for our lives, and must prevent all possible from falling mto the hands of plundering Nazism.