Nazis Preying On Neutral Shipping

Northern Advocate, 23 February 1940, Page 5

Nazis Preying On Neutral Shipping

(Received 1.30 p.m.) RUGJY, February 22. A statement by the Swedish Foreign Minister yesterday, on the losses of the Swedish merchant navy as a result of Nazi methods in their universal sea war, is widely commented upon in the morning Press. [ M. Guenther stated that 32 ships, totalling 64,000 lons, had been lost by Sweden since the outbreak of the war, and that 228 Swedish seamen I had died and 15 were missing. Further’, over half the losses were sustained while the vessels were ply-! ing between nutral ports. Real Nazi Aim. The “News Chronicle” says: The figures represent a “tremendous indictment of the Nazis’ policy at sea, and can hardly leave the Swedish people in doubt as to where their real interests lie. Clearly, the aim of the Nazis is nothing less than total destruction of all Sweden's overseas trade except her trade with Germa.nv.” ihe “Daily Telegraph” says: “Nothing that any speaker in the Allied countries has said of the brutality cf the German Navy is , more severe than this record, compiled by a neutral statesman, of the wrongs done to his own country.” The bombing of a Swedish town by Soviet warplanes, reported yesterday, is instanced by the “Daily Telegraph” as another and “one of the grossest cases of what must appear a deliberate attack on a neutral. In conclusion, the editorial refers to the sufferings of the whole of Scandinavia.at the hands of the Nazis. Suicide Club. “Hitlerism’s policy is to compel neutrals to join a ‘suicide club,,’ every member of which must starve himself out,” the paper says. “They have the power to resist. If they stand together and refuse supplies of foodstuffs and timber and iron ore on which Germany is dependent, they can stop the murder of their seamen and save their shipping, and maintain their industries. “In British or French convoys, as M. Guenther reminded them, not one Swedish ship has been sunk.”