TRADE WITH EAST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 263, 4 October 1940, Page 7

TRADE WITH EAST.

HUGE TONNAGE TRANSPORTED

LONDON, Oct. 2. The Ministry of Economic "Warfare spokesman has disclosed the hollowness of Italy’s claim to control the Mediterranean, or even seriously to interfere with British trade in the Levant. Some convoys are able to traverse the Mediterranean, and a regular and steadily increasing trade is passing to and from the Suez Canal and the lied Sea past Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. Italian submarines and planes are powerless to check it. Britain since July- has imported tens of thousands of tons of magnesite from Greece for making bombs. The United Kingdom Commercial Corporation has imported vast quantities of dried fruits from the same source. Timber came from Rumania, dried fruits and other goods from Turkey, hemp and flax from the Balkans, and cotton, cotton seed, lime, phosphates and onions from Egypt. Cotton shipments for the first six months of the year were above the average. Cyprus sends asbestos and iron pyrites,' and increasing quantities of potash are being imported from Palestine. , Britain is carrying on a large export trade with these countries. Egypt gets coal, oil, fertilisers, timber, metals, and machinery safely, though according to enemy propaganda British trade in tile Near East has completely stopped.