Let Europe Starve Or Prolong War

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 63, 17 March 1944, Page 5

Let Europe Starve Or Prolong War

(British Official Wireless.) Received Thursday, 7.30 p.m. RUGBY, March 15. In a debate in the Lords on under nutrition in the occupied countries oi Europe the Archbishop of Canterbury stated that it was estimated that well over 11,000,000 children were suffering from malnutrition. “It is the future of the population of the Continent that is involved, ’ ’ he said. Dr. Temple was moving to ask the Government if it had any information concerning the supply of food for the people of enemy occupied countries, particularly Greece and Belgium. The actual death roll was becoming very high, he said, and the incidence oi disease had showed how much resist ance was being weakened. There was a prospect in future of a German nation with citizens well nourished, strong and vigorous surrounded by neighbours whose physical vigour and nervous stability and even moral constancy had been undermined by malnutrition. Dr. Temple dealt with the plight of the populations of Greece, Belgium and Poland so far as nutrition was concerned and stated that the numbers oi young children in want of swift help were: In France, 1,900,000; Holland, 300,000; Poland, 3,500,000; Czechoslovakia, 160,000; Yugoslavia, 2,100,000. He suggested that the Government make the most generous possible response to the resolution which had been passed in the United States asking the United States Government to work out in conjunction with Britain, Sweden and Switzerland a system of moving food supplies to Belgium, Norway, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands and Yugo slavia. Lord Horder (the noted physician), supporting the motion, said wild statements had been made about famine and hunger, but medical men were more concerned with prolonged undernourishment which was much more serious because it led to diseases of low resistance, chiefly tuberculosis and a state of affairs which could not find a remedy in that generation or even the next. Lord Horder understood that Germany had not prevented the food sent to Greece reaching the people for whom it was intended. Why not try elsewhere? Replying, the Minister of Economic Warfare (Earl Selborne) said the Government had no wish that its blockade policy should be judged by any othei standard than Christian principles. “But when you are attempting to apply Christian principles in wartime you are really faced with a continuous choice of evils.” In applying the blockade the Government endeavoured to mitigate its impact on our unfortunate Allies in the occupied countries by every way it could. Germany now had all occupied Europe rationed and organised in her own interests, and she was able to send food from one country to another though both might be short of food and keep the level of supply at just what height she wished in any country. The Germans calculated they would lose more than they would gain by trying to preserve economy and life in Greece since the country was a large importer of foodstuffs and had very little to contribute to the German war machine so they simply let Greece starve with that cold calculated brutality characteristic of them. It was not we who treated Greece differently it was the Germans. Earl Selborne, xeferring to the pleas to ship food to German occupied countries, said Allied sailors and ships of countries other than those mentioned were risking theii lives every day to bring food to Britain. “What justification should we have in asking them to risk their lives to bring food, to the exclusion of theii country, to other countries which were in no greater straits. “Let us beware,” he concluded, “that in trying to save the health oi the young people in occupied territory we do not prolong by a single day the appalling degradations and horrors to which they are subject. Let us also beware lest by prolonging the war we sacrifice the lives of thousands of young men who from all the Allied countries are marching to liberate Europe. ’ ’