The fact that it is still world news when an Axis ship, by stealth or speed, slips past the ocean watch dogs, provides a tribute to their untiring vigilance. Berlin jeers at the supposed uselessness of the British blockade, but the cargo of salted hides, castor oil, nickel, mica and precióus coffee, which the Lech was trying to get through from America, shows that German jeers are insincere, and that the real feeling is anxiety, The blockade has made the great Bosch manufacturing firm admit that they are specialising in Ersatz substitutes because certain materials are unobtainable. Aluminium has replaced bronze and copper for self-starters and lighting sets, mica, of which the Lech carried 5,891 kilos, is replaced by paper for insulation of condensers and by ceramic insulating material for high performance plugs for aircraft. The Bosch organization boast that they have, by substitutes, saved 140,000 kilos of copper; 170,000 kilos of rubber; 700.000 kilos of brass and tombac,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.