SOVIET SUPPLIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23575, 8 February 1940, Page 8

SOVIET SUPPLIES

One of the most speculative factors in estimating the course of the war is the extent of the supplies of "food and raw materials that Germany will be able to draw from Russia. Will she be able to obtain enough to ease the sti-anglehold of the blockade and prolong the struggle? The Nazis seek to persuade the world that the answer is in the affirmative. A report is published this morning of the extensive exchange of goods under the NaziSoviet agreement, but it is significant that this optimistic statement issues from Berlin, not from Moscow, and mentions commodities but not quantities. The fact that Russia contains resources of great extent and wide variety is undeniable. Her ability to exploit them for her own use —let alone export to Germany—is open to the most serious question, however. In the mineral realm, prospecting in recent years has uncovered new deposits of gold, lead, copper, antimony, cobalt, tungsten, bauxite, tin, nickel, zinc, iron and oil. But it is one thing to have knowledge of the existence of these resources and another to develop them. Their exploitation for Russia's own use demands a large expenditure of organising' ability, time, capital, labour and the provision of .adequate transport. Export production would involve advancing over other difficult stages. One of the main difficulties of Russian economy has always been the immense distances to be covered between the point of supply and the point of use. Mineral,ores in some cases are still hauled thousands of miles to coal. The only developed oil field is separated by hundreds of miles of water, land and water again from the main industrial centi-es. The signing of a pact with Germany would not dispose of these geographical barriers, or overcome them, in a matter of months. If it is allowed, German organisation may loosen a little the chronic Russian tie-up, but certainly not with decisive effect in countering the blockade..