The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1940 Blockade and Food

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21556, 19 January 1940, Page 6

The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, JANUARY 19, 1940 Blockade and Food

AN old problem was momentarily raised by the Bishop of Birmingham, at the Convocation of Canterbury, when he suggested that a petition should be sent to the British Government asking it to allow the free importation of foodstuffs to Germany in accordance with the Divine precept that a hungry enemy should be fed. The motion, however, was subsequently withdrawn by Bishop Barnes who said the House was divided an practicalities, but not on moral fundamentals. Experience of the Great War showed what a terrible weapon a blockade can be, and it was General Smuts who said, after reviewing the effects of blockade and counter-blockade in Europe, that “it is the most awful spectacle in history, and no man with any heart or regard for human destiny can contemplate it without the deepest emotion.” Nevertheless, the attitude of the Archbishop of Canterbury is the one most likely to be generally endorsed. The Nazi regime chose war as its instrument, foisted war upon the peace-loving nations of Europe, and it is to be assumed that the German Government has made reasonable arrangements to provide food for the unfortunate people under its control. There is, from the British standpoint, no other way of looking at the problem.

This question of food supply was discussed at the beginning of 1915, when’the British Government had to decide whether a belligerent was free to stop all food for his enemy, or whether he should be debarred from stopping any food. The Declaration of London, of 1909, which bad been planned at The Hague Conference, of 1907, to codify rules for the conduct of war at sea, held that belligerents were at liberty to cut off their enemy’s sea-borne supplies if they could do so by a close blockade of the enemy coast, without including any neutral port in the blockaded zone. Under the Declaration of London commodities were put into three classes. Absolute contraband consisted of commodities used only for military purposes. Conditional contraband consisted of commodities which might be used either for military or civilian purposes, including food, fuel, and lubricants. Non-contraband consisted of those commodities which, it was assumed, were primarily for civilian use, but oddly enough these included copper, nickel, rubber, iron ore and copper, the chief raw materials of the war industry. The Declaration had attempted to establish an intermediate category for foodstuffs, mid-way between absolute contraband and non-contraband, but by the beginning of 1915 it became evident that it was impossible to draw a substantial distinction between consignments destined for the government, its agents, or armed forces, and those destined for the civilian population. There could, of course, be no discrimination between the use to which consignments would be put when the distinction between the civil and military element had ceased to exist. The German Government was just as much concerned to make sure of the supply of food for the munition worker at home as for that of the soldier in the field. A test cargo of food was sent on a steamer to Hamburg for the use of the civilian population, but the British seized it, and from then on the blockade was applied with the utmost vigour possible.

The methods which had to be adopted in 1915 have already been adopted to meet the needs of the present war, and regrettable though it may be there is no alternative to them. War has to be waged against the German people just as it is being waged against the German Army, the Air Force find the Navy. Civilians of all kinds are the material the Nazis are using for the advancement of their nefarious ends. German resistance will be weakened by the blockade, so the fullest use must be made of this powerful weapon. Innocent peaceloving people will suffer with the warmongers, but that is the tragic and inevitable accompaniment of war.