Oranges for Wheat

Before its recent civil war, Spain carried on a thriving trade with France and Great Britain. With France trade was nearly always balanced, but with Britain Spain usually had a big export surplus, which gave her pounds sterling to use in world markets. The civil war finished all that, but long before Generalissimo Francisco Franco's final victory, Spain had a substitute. Nazi traders moved in in numbers and organized an extensive, mutually satisfactory German-Spanish barter trade.

At civil war's end Generalissimo Franco, still holding a grudge against Britain and France for their long refusal to recognize his Government, snubbed British and French commercial agents, although what Spain needed to recover was trade and more trade. The French sent their distinguished soldier, 83-year-old Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, to deal with the reluctant Spaniards, but even he had to cool his heels while waiting for audiences with Spanish officials.

Then came World War II and with it a British-French blockade of German ports, German-Spanish trade dwindled. Oranges piled up on Valencia's docks, the iron ore of the Basque littoral could no longer be shipped to Hamburg. Generalissimo Franco, although holding Britain and France responsible for this "absurd" war, agreed to talk trade. For three months Frenchmen and Spaniards dickered. Once France broke off negotiations, said that ungrateful Spain did not realize the extent of her concessions. Spain retaliated by closing her border to what little trade had been allowed to cross the French frontier. The personable Nazi traders in Madrid did all they could to hamper the talks.

Then Great Britain offered its "good offices." Upshot was that last week Marshal Petain entertained at luncheon Spanish Foreign Minister Juan Beigbeder y Atienza and a French delegation of commercial experts, let it be announced that Spain and France would sign a trade agreement early this week. Strangely enough, Foreign Minister Beigbeder's father was a German, his mother tongue is German and he was once Spanish military attache in Berlin.

To France will go Spanish oranges, Spanish Moroccan iron ore, pyrites, mercury, lead, zinc. In exchange Spain will get French Moroccan wheat, phosphates, barley, manufactured goods. The trade, expected to reach a volume valued at 650,000,000 francs in a few months, will be balanced. A British-Spanish trade pact providing for much greater trade is expected to follow. With that concluded, Spain's commerce will return to the prewar trade status and Generalissimo Franco's Government, despite its ideological sympathies with the Nazis, will find its commercial interests with the Allies.

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