FOOD CRISIS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 111, 15 May 1942, Page 5

FOOD CRISIS

FAMINE IN EURQPE SHORTAGE IN OCCUPIED COUNTRIES (Special Correspondent.) ’ (Recd. 7.30 p.m.) London, May 13. “Food!” This cry is already rising up from Nazi-ruled Europe, while there are growing indications that Germany herself is feeling the pinch and is beginning to be worried over the growing scarcity of food and the difficulty of draining supplies from the dominated countries. c The Financial News comments on “ the marked deterioration in the food situation in Germany, which, from the j viewpoint of the United Nations, is an " unexpected development. Informed * circles express the opinion that this y food deterioration is largely her own ■ y , responsibility. She made a fatal n blunder by invading the Balkans and attacking the Soviet, for south-eastern s and eastern Europe is her principal lt larder. The Yugoslav and Ukraine r campaigns in 1941 resulted in the de<r struction of large quantities of food which otherwise would have been >■ available for Germany. The present fighting in those areas meaus difficulty in transporting available supplies. c ] while most optimistic German experts. e do not reckon on food supplies from 1S the Ukraine before 1943. L t Although Germany believed she e could squeeze food from the subject races, the quantities obtained arc behind expectation.;. Despite ruthless exploitation the food secured from the conquered countries is not sufficient to secure adequate diet for tne German people. The 1942 crop forecasts for German-occupied Europe cl are far from satisfactory, while the n hard winter destroyed a large part of e the potato crop in Germany and n and affected other crops. Thus there , e prospects of a bad harvest following two mediocre ones w-ill lead to the depletion of Germany’s food reserve, j It is the opinion that there is some justification for guarded optimism that the results will aff"ct Germany, ? but it would be foolish to expect an early collapse, yet, the inadequate diet ■ is bound to slow down the German arms output. German authorities must to-day provide food for some 10,000,000 people more than before the war. taking into account imported labour, repatriated Germans and the normal rise in population, and also prisoners. It is believed that one in every fourth 1 person in Germany is employed in - agriculture, while married women and - girls living at home are being con- ) scrinU'd for field work. Italy is also making desperate efforts to cultivate food in view of sowings last year being 20 to 40 per cent, under normal, while the severe winter played havoc with the potato crop. While nobody sympathises with the Axis food shortage, it is an unhappy corollary that the occupied countries are suffering. In this connection, Mr. ;• Dingle Foot, commenting in the n House of Commons, stated that food - supplies are well maintained in DeuJ mark, but in Norwav, the Netherlands i and Czechoslovakia, the diet is well [ ( under the pre-war standard. Though - not inadequate, it will cause undernourishment. :1 The urban population of Belgium,! - and to a lesser degree than France, is v chronically under-fed, while there is a - considerable diminution in supplies to r Yugoslavian towns. Worse conditions prevail in Greece, parts of Poland and German-occupied Russia. It is hoped ti that famine conditions in Greece will be averted by proposed shipments ol v - wheat. Conditions arc so bad that I Greece proposed to send a number ol 1 children to Egypt and parts in the r British Empire. i Reports J rom Norway state that the ■_ presence ot 200,000 German troops > created an acute food problem. ReI ferring to this, Quisling's newspaper □ Frittfolk said: “We are facing famine if we do not fully exert ourselves and produce more food.” Turkey is experiencing food difficulties as a result of last year’s deficient crops, and despite 70,000 tons of wheat imported through the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation, the Turkish Government has been compelled to adopt drastic measures to preserve supplies for the Army and population. Thus, in attdition to the cruelties ami savagery the Nazis have imposed on Europe, there now stalks the spectre of hunger. It does not (omfort the European peoples to realise that the Germans are short. Germany’s food position in # 1942 is compared with 1917. There is every indication that Europe is facing a crisis on the food front. R.A.F. RAIDS ON FRANCE ATTITUDE OF PEOPLE London, May 12. There is fresh evidence that the Germans have failed to whip up antiBritish feeling ampng French workers over the recent R.A.F. raids on armament factories in Paris. A confidential Vichy memorandum which has reached London says that while many Frenchmen naturally deplore any casualties caused by the air raids, they are all agreed that factories making arms for the Nazis are fair game 'for the R.A.F. Indeed, they quite expect that the R.A.F. will soon come again, because they know that these raids form part of the offensive to liberate France from the Nazi oppressors.