GERMAN TRADE DILEMMA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23521, 5 December 1939, Page 8

GERMAN TRADE DILEMMA

Economic warfare, as FieldMarshal Lord Milne has recently pointed out, cannot of itself prove a decisive factor in the present European struggle, but, in spite of that, the manner of its prosecution by Britain and France, coupled with other naval and military activities, must be causing Hitler and his associates untold worry. Germany's trade problems, resulting from the system of contraband control which Allied naval superiority has made possible, are reviewed in an article published in the Economist, summarised to-day in a wireless message from llugby, and fairly conclusive evidence is quoted to show the growing economic and industrial difficulties of the Reich. One of the most important points arising from this expert analysis is that the British and French order making goods of German origin liable to seizure on the high seas will probably be of only limited application, not because of any difficulty that may be experienced in enforcing it, but because Germany will be unable to obtain many of the raw materials required for her manufacturing industries. A similar position arose in the last war, but the position then was that Germany, in spite of her control over practically the whole of Eastern Europe, was producing so feverishly for military purposes that she could not afford to think about export trade. To-day the Nazis have only very limited access to raw materials and their efforts to make up deficiencies by importing through adjacent neutral countries must be severely handicapped by tho fact that those neutral countries will buy from Germany only the goods that they need ; and it is hardly likely that they will show any great eagerness to exchange valuable commodities for goods manufactured from artificial substitutes. The economic weapon, resolutely employed, is therefore one that must assist materially in giving Hitlerism its death-blow,)