Trades and Traders

Years after World War I ended, many students of international affairs were surprised to learn that all during the war years limited trade was carried on by French and German businessmen through Switzerland and by German and British traders through The Netherlands. Last week, in the Chilton Co. steel trade publication Iron Age, Paul Fidrmuc, one of the magazine's correspondents, claimed to have uncovered a similar trading agreement in operation now between warring France and Germany, with neutral Belgium this time the intermediary.

Correspondent Fidrmuc's findings: France recently bought 4,000,000 tons of coal in Belgium, at the same time shipping 6,000,000 tons of iron ore to Belgium. His conclusions: since Belgium can neither supply such an amount of coal nor use that much iron ore, the "assumption is that most of the coal will come from Germany and the iron ore will go to Germany . . . thus furnishing another example of the many abnormalities in this curious war."

Other trade notes:

> After weeks of dickering, Rumania signed a new trade agreement with Germany which: 1) enhanced the value of the aski mark by nearly one-fourth as compared to the Rumanian lei, thereby giving Germany more for her money; 2) increased the yearly sale of Rumanian oil to Germany from 1,200,000 tons to 1,820,000--about 50% above pre-war levels but not enough to provide more than one-third of Germany's peacetime needs, let alone war needs. Rumor had it that to obtain these advantageous terms Hitler guaranteed Rumanian boundaries. Whether the guarantee will be good if Stalin invades Rumania remains to be seen. Also to be seen is how much oil Germany actually gets. The problem, will be to transport it on the already over-burdened Rumanian railroad system and the Danube. That little problem Rumania left strictly to the Nazis.

> Before the war the Mexican Government bartered for German machinery with the oil it got from the wells it expropriated from U. S., British, Dutch companies. Last week about 6,000 tons of German machinery was in Genoa, awaiting British and French shipping permits. Meanwhile, through intermediaries (since Mexico and Great Britain broke off relations in May 1938), Mexico argued that the delivery could not possibly benefit Germany, since it was already paid for anyway by oil delivered before the war.

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