PROLONGED DROUGHT IN EASTERN EUROPE CAUSES MUCH DAMAGE

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 September 1947, Page 5

PROLONGED DROUGHT IN EASTERN EUROPE CAUSES MUCH DAMAGE

EFFECTS MAY CAUSE STATES TO SEEK KREMLIN’S AID

Recd. 7.10 p.m. London, Sept. 29 The Vienna correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph ’ says the prolonged drought in Central Europe is expected to end soon, and there have already been local rains. The damage caused is very great and makes food prospects more grim than the most cautious estimates a short time ago.

Industries received a severe setback through the power shortages. The Danube is at its lowest level for 80 years, and all major shipping movement has been halted. Big forest fires continue to burn in many districts.

Drought damage in the Danube Basin runs into hundreds of millions sterling. Losses in Hungary alone since its liberation total about £140,000,000. Harvests in Austria, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia suffered badly, and winter sowings are jeopardised. Potato crops and fodder supplies, both important items in the domestic economies of these countries, are much below the normal. The effects of the drought will be a tangible factor on Government policies in Central European States. For example, a joint programme issued by Communists and Socialists in Hungary stresses that one of the main aims is to balance the Budget, which has been endangered by the bad harvest caused by the drought. These countries will be more than ever dependent on food imports, and those Governments which are Communist-dominated will turn increasingly to the Soviet Union for supplies, thus placing themselves still further in the Kremlin’s power. As the hardships grow there is increasingly regret among rural communities that their Governments, with the exception of Austria, so savagely spurned the Marshall plan. In Austria many factories remain closed because of the lack of power. The fuel situation this winter may be as bad, if not worse than, last winter.