NORWAY'S POSITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue CXXIII, 10 April 1937, Page 9

NORWAY'S POSITION

IN EVENT OF WARFARE

GERMANY AND THE BALTIC

OSLO, April 1

■- Summoned by the Prime Minister, M. Nygaardsvold, all party leaders met yesterday in Storting .and discussed the problem of maintaining Norway's neutrality in the event', of.war.

General Erichsen, military governor of North; Norway, recently declared, when interviewed by the "Aftenposten,". that.it was'-not merely^ : for pleasure that Reichsrpinister , yon Blomberg ■ travelled along Norway's weather-beaten coast, and that Germany- dispatched ...warships without notice to pilots .into the northern waters.■'-.■ ■• • : ■'• ~. '■ ■ ••■■.'■■ ;■■;';' . The v'.'Aftenposten" states that General yon ; Blomberg' visited Narvik, Tromso, Hammerfest, and Masoy., Russian rwar:;vessels hay been observed , manoeuvring ... off .the: . north Norwegian coast, and airmen have been flying overl North Sweden and Norway. . It is believed that Russia no longer, counts on '-'outlets via 'the Baltic and Black Seas in the event of war.-Mur-mansk, on the \A'rc'tic, has ' become a city of 100,000-people;1 connected -with Leningrad .by1 a doiible-tfack"railway: Twenty-five torpedo .boats, fifteen submarines arid important air force units are stationed near" by at Port Alexandrovsk; and'the submarines and torpedo, boats can reach the White Sea from the Baltic via the Stalin Canal. ... When the Mafia Canal between the Neva.'and' Lake' Onega is reconstructed, even cruisers will be able: to. use the route. . : '■"■ ■' ■: v .-"'' To blockade Russia, Germany would therefore need.to bottle upi the Arctic route. ,'■ '' ■ '■'■■" :.■.'■ .■■ ■ '•' '' ■' '"■■.■•" Germany also1 depends on Swedish iron ore, which is .largely .exported through Narvik. Germany' imported 14,064,000 tons in 1935, against her home production of 5,000,000. Of imports, ,5,110,000, tons .came from Sweden. Tentative • figured 'give Germany's 1936 imports y of Swedish ore as 7,500,000 tons. The chief iron mining centres .are,.two. hours' flight across Finland from the Soviet air bases, in Karelia. ;< .'..■. '