ECONOMIC WAR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20110, 2 December 1939, Page 6

ECONOMIC WAR

ALLIED REPRISAL EFFECT ON NEUTRALS MINIMISING HARDSHIP NOT WHOLLY LOSSES TRADE EXPANSION HOPES (ELe. Ttd. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 1.30 p.m. RUGBY. Dec. 1. Tiic weekly newspaper Economist, reviewing the British reprisals Order-in-Coimcil and the French decree, comments on the effort being made to minimise tiie hardship or inconvenience to neutrals. “Goods .seized will lie requisitioned, detained, or sold if the Prize Court is satisfied that their origin or ownership is German,'’ it says. “If the Court is not satisfied —tests are openly and legally applied—the goods will be released. If goods thought to be originally German became neutral property before November 27, the court will decide whether they will be released or the proceeds of their sale be forthwith paid over to the owner. Goods ordered before November 27 may be similarly treated. “Neutral-owned goods of enemy origin may also be released if they are cleared from neutral ports before December 11. Neutrals will be encouraged to obtain from Allied consular officials “certificates of neutral origin for goods they intend to ship—that is certificates stating that not less than three-quarters of the value of the goods is in respect of neutral labour and materials. These will expedite their passage through the Allied controls. There will be further relaxations of the embargo in cases of proved hardship to neutrals.’’ In the opinion of the Economist, the scheme is very fairly, if stringently, drawn, and it adds: ■ “It will not wholly mean loss to neutrals, for it means an end, outside the scope of Nazi methods of trade, which make Germany’s customers her dependents. Still less will it mean loss if it is accompanied by a positive export [policy by the Allies.”

On this point the Economist goes on to insist that blockading the enemy is only a measure of economic warfare and urges that it is all important for the British Government and British traders to see that the terms of trade in every possible case are unfavourable to the enemy.

Elsewhere, referring to the success of the Allied contraband control, as shown by the seizure by the British control alone of 463,000 tons of goods destined for Germany, including 100,000 tons of petroleum products, the Economist observes: “These, and not the sporadic brutalities of the Nazis are signs of dominant sea power.”