11 is remarkable how the Swedish newspapers have been permitted to be so frank in their criticism of Germany, without the government of that country having put suc~ cessful pressure upon the Swedish Government to change the tone of its Press, Thus in a most sarcastic article the "Goteborys Handels Tidningen" writes "As a result of the Third Reich war machine, every single country now in German occupation is threaened with want, where before existed many cases of surplus over its own needs. 'This first acquaintance with the new Europe makes its propaganda and its ordered delights' rather meaningless. Hungry men do desperate deeds. Technically it is easy to mow down men' with machine-guns, bul the blood-soaked ground will produce a terrible vest of hate." Despite endeavours of the German propaganda machine to explain it way, it is a fact that the harvests in Europe this year are much below those of previous years. It is stated that Rumania's harvest is so poor that she will have no surplus for export, Those countries which have felt the full force of the war are also below the average of production, not only because of the areas which have been over-run, but also because of the diversion of large numbers of men from agriculture to the sterner business of war. It is because of this that the French protest over the stoppage of the importation of wheat from the western hemisphere has added point.
But the Germans appear to have got their propaganda all wrong. If it is true, as they claim, that this year's harvest is sufficient to see Europe through to next spring, and that they hold the large reserves they claim to possess, there should be no danger of famine. But the German claims have to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Accepting then to be true for the purposes of this argument, then it will follow that if indeed famine does strike the occupied countries of Europe it will be due, as it is claimed in London, to Nazi incompetence. It will be remembered that Hitler in his speech of July 19, before the Reichstag, said the Nazi sup-lies of food were "limitless." Thus Hitler, and the German propagandists are definitely establishing their responsibility for the catastrophe which neutral observers find threatens. Europe this winter. This is made all the clearer when it is remembered that the German official wireless stated on June 27 that while a plan for the relief of France, Belgium and the Netherlands was doubtless "worthy of commendation," the German authorities themselves had taken all necessary steps to ensure the feeding of these: peoples.
Statements such as these contrast strong-with allegations made by Mr. John Cudahy, former U.S, Ambassador to Belgium, who says that by the end of Septemnber that country will be facing famine conditions. If that proves to be the case, and there is every reason to fear that it will be, then the German authorities are busy in the most wantonly callous piece of arrogant bluffing in which they have indulged during this war. But British authoritative circles put the whole matter in an entirely different light. Germany, they say, entered the war with a reserve supply of 7,000,000 tons of grain. Her invasion of neighbouring countries, it is reported, has increased that figure to nearly 10,000,000 tons and to that has to be added the present harvest. It is contended that in view of these figures should famine occur in Belgium or other occupied territories it will be entirely duc {0 the inability of the Nazi machine to cope with a situation of its own creation. That hardly carries the matter far enough, for, while conceding the possibility of Nazi incompetence, might not a famine arise from the utter' mercilessness which has characterized the Nazis all along People who have so recklessly sent so many hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths, who use murder as their principal political weapon, are not likely to be influenced much by the possibility of the peoples they have suppressed dying starvation. For them it might be the most convenient method of securing that Lebensraum of which they so glibly talk.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.