NAZI EXPORT TRADE

Southland Times, Issue 23991, 5 December 1939, Page 7

NAZI EXPORT TRADE

Effect Of Latest Allied Measure

SOURCE OF FREE EXCHANGE LOST (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, December 3. In a column compiled by its editorial staff from German and neutral sources, the weekly journal The Economist makes a series of observations on German export trade activities which are of great interest because of the Allied decision to seize, as a reprisal for German violations of the laws of war, German exports in neutral ships. German industry, it is calculated, is dependent for 70 per cent, of its raw materials on imports, which must be paid for either in goods or in free exchange. That part of Germany’s exports which now is subjected to the Allied embargo is that from which she most looked to obtain free exchange. . . As for trade through clearings, it is stated that Germany has been putting severe pressure on neutral States to secure deliveries, but the results have not been very successful. “German sales to Switzerland rose sharply in October,” The Economist says. “Swiss deliveries to Germany did not. Germany’s clearing debt to Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Turkey has been reduced since the war. Exports have been maintained or increased, but imports from these countries have fallen short. “Germany has not been able to accumulate free exchange or increase her imports from small European neutral States. The bulk of Germany’s exports has gone to reduce her debts to importing countries.” Attention is then directed to the claim freely made in Germany that trade with Europe and Soviet Russia can make up for the overseas trade lost by the Allied embargo. The first point made by The Economist is that the claim pays no regard to the fact that vital commodities like nickel, copper, cotton and jute are lacking in those markets. As for Russia, she “has only delivered grain and fodder, but Germany also wants oil-seeds, textile fibres, manganese ore and phosphates from the Soviet. The Russian oil-seeds output has risen from 2,700,000 tons in 1913 to 4,700,000 or twice the Reich’s annual imports in 1918. But the common Russian oil seed is the sunflower seed, which is chewed in the same way as the betel and areca nut in India, and it is not available for export.” The Economist points out, moreover, that “Russian grain, oil, timber, flax and ores have commonly been exported in return, directly or indirectly, for rubber, tin, copper, cocoa and tea from the British Empire. Russia must maintain her place in the American and British markets in order to obtain these commodities which Germany cannot supply. “Soviet exports cannot be delivered en bloc to the Reich. Russia has indeed already offered a normal year’s supply of manganese ore to the .United States of America.”

USE OF DOCTRINE OF REPRISALS PRECEDENT GIVEN BY NAPOLEON (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, December 3. Tomorrow the war enters upon its fourth month and there comes into operation the Order-in-Council signed by the King last Monday which—as a reprisal for German violations _ of the laws and customs of war—provides for further restraint of her commerce by making liable to seizure German exports in neutral ships. The doctrine of reprisals is very ancient. A celebrated example of its application occurred during the Napoleonic wars when Napoleon Bonaparte illegally purported by his Berlin Decree to forbid neutral trade with England. Britain replied by Orders-in-Council which had the object of cutting off all enemy commerce. A more recent example occurred in the last war when a situation very similar to the present one arose by reason of illegal German submarine and mine action which was answered by an Order-in-Council of March 11, 1915. The object then—as it is again today—was that of preventing enemy commerce without danger to life at sea and without involving loss to neutral interests by confiscation. The German action taken against British commerce, on the contrary, threatens not only neutral shipping and neutral cargoes but neutral life.

NAZIS CONCENTRATE BOMBERS PARIS, December 3. The Germans are concentrating a great mass of bombers on the Western Front. For this purpose they are constructing many new aerodromes, in the Frankfort and Rhine valley regions. The Army dispositions on the Swiss and Dutch borders are unchanged, permitting any offensive at two days’ notice.