IMPORTANCE OF BLOCKADE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 132, 6 May 1941, Page 6

IMPORTANCE OF BLOCKADE.

MAKING GERMANY SUFFER. (British Official Wireless.) HUG BY. May 4. The importance and efficiency of the British blockade was stressed by Mr Wilmot, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Economic Warfare, in a speech in Birmingham. "Because Hitler temporarily is master of most of Europe," Mr Wilmot said, "some people imagine that he now has access to vast, unlimited supplies which will enable him to carry on the war indefinitely. They either for-

get the blockade or attempt to argue that it no longer counts. Let me disillusion them. Hitler controls the western seahoard of Europe from Narvik to Biarritz, hut from the point of view of supplies it avails him nothing, for no German ship dare sail the surface of the Atlantic to bring him goods from the Americas.

"If the conquered countries arc to he of any use to him. Hitler must feed them, organise their industries and adapt their transport systems. This ] means sending valuable stocks of lood.J raw materials and machinery which j Germany can ill afford to spare. "Immediately on occupation the Germans looted everything: of value in the j conquered countries and so made up, many of their deficiencies. Now they grudgingly have to return some of the spoils. A conquered country is a liability as well ns an asset. More and more the Germans are aoinu; to feel the pinch, hut whatever shortages there mav he in Germany they will not be felt by the army first. It is the civilians who have to bear the brunt of ivant and it may well be that under the strain thev mav break as they did in 1918, irre'spectiVe of the victories of German arms. That is why the blockade must be maintained."