FEEDING NAZIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 225, 21 September 1940, Page 10

FEEDING NAZIS.

CONQUERED LANDS. Blockade Should Be Drawn Tighter And Tighter. British .Official \Virelp«*. (Reed. 11.30 a.m.) Sc]>t. 20. Tiio plundering by the Germans of the countries they have enslaved, is discussed in '"Tile 'I imps," which notes that Rumania celebrated lier iidhesiun to the Axis by rationing the consumption of tlie bread of lier people on the pretext of a pour harvest. 'illc* real reason, it, says, is that tlie Xa/.i war machine requires to be fed more and more at tlie expense of the countries it has enslaved. From Rumania it expects corn as well as oil. and to supply corn the people of Rumania must go short.

Remarking that the procedure varied from country to country, and describing the open despoliation and enslavement of Czechoslovakia, and Poland, '"The Times" says that in the more recently conquered Scandinavia, Low Countries and France, wheie it is felt necessary for a time to present a lec-s forbidding face. dilTerent tactics were necessary.

The methods employed were those of a card sharper lather than a highway robber, but '"whatever method is employed. the result is the same. The real wealth of the subjugated peoples linds its wav to (iermanv.

"The Xa/.i Economic Minister, Dr. Funk, lias explained that the standard of living of conquered peoples must be reduced to maintain the standard of living of Germany. Lesson for Britain. • "For tho*e countries that so far have escaped German domination the warning is plain. For us there is an equally plain lesson, since everything these subjugated peoples produce for themselves or import from abroad is at the disposition of their German masters. The blockade must be drawn tighter and tighter.

'"Tlie recent extension of the navicert system seems to be working effectively, backed as it is by regulations ensuring that facilities <it British ports shall be available only to shipowners who eon- ■ >rni to the system. These regulations have now been strengthened by tinrevival of a black of ships, which will be denied all facilities and refused navicerts. It will be an offence for any person to transact business with any shipowner named on this list.

"The object of the system is to shut off 'rade with the outside world from the whole area controlled by Genua- y and Italy, other countries from which might find their way without difficulty into this area being rationed to ensure that they do not receive more supplies than are requited for their own needs. "This rationing system must inevitably raise problems of real difficulty, as in the ease of oil imports to Spain, concerning which an agreement has just been reached, but these problems have to be faced. We are fight in}* for o* -• lives, and prevent everything possible falling into the hands of plundering Nazi-ism."