8 
Land & Water 
February 14, 191 8 
The After- War Blockade: By Arthur Pollen 
TH E New York papers of the third week of January 
contain a great deal of interesting information 
about the development of American opinion. 
Not the least important jftem relates to a 
canvass of 500,000 members of the Associated 
Chambers of Commerce, who have been asked to vote on the 
issue, " Should the business men of America enter mto a 
voluntary obligation after the war to decline all trade trans- 
actions with the merchants of Germany until that country 
is governed entirely by a democratioiUy elected parliament ? " 
On the same day that I saw th^s I noted a report of a speech 
bv Mr. Havelock Wilson in which he announced that the 
organised labour of the shipping world had definitely made up 
its mind to have— and allow— no after-war dealings with a 
country that had murdered so many thousand British sea 
oflScers and sailors. 
There is, of course, nothing new in unofficial threats of 
this kind. They have constantly been made during the 
war, and the only very limited official endorsement of them 
seems to have been that which was included in the pro- 
ceedings of the Paris Conference on economic issues. The 
sentiment that makes people individually and collectively 
resolve never to employ GeiTnans again or to trade with 
them, or to deal with them on any excuse, is natural, and 
that it should, from time to time, take concrete shape is 
inevitable. It is inevitable also that those who join in 
common resolves of this kind should go further and suggest 
to their governments an instant profession of a definite and 
irrevocable plan for joint international effort to give effect 
to this plan after the war. But save for the not very sweeping 
conclusions of the Paris Conference — to which by the way 
no adherence has been given by the United States — no re- 
sponsible post bellum threats of any kind have yet been made, 
if we except Mr. Asquith's statement that the murderers of 
Captain Fryatt would be brought to account, a thing, of 
course, that cannot be done unless Germany is so decisively 
defeated that her government will be compelled to accept 
any terms that the victors propwse. And this no doubt is 
the explanation why no further threats, economic or other- 
wise, have been made. If we win we can impose any terms 
we like. If we have to compromise, the economic weapons 
at our disposal for a bloodless war after the real war will be 
highly ifliportant counters in negotiation. The more certain 
we are to win, the less we need trouble ourselves with menaces 
that look like substitutes for victory. When we remember 
that, notwithstanding the defection of Russia, the military 
position on sea and land is such that we only have to per- 
severe to be sure of the kind of victory which will make any 
"compromise unnecessary, we shall have no diificulty in seeing 
why the Allies have no need to hold a trade blockade in 
terrorem over Germany. And we are less than ever likely 
to doubt this, now that we have the very welcome news that 
the American Navy Department is assured of sufficient ton- 
nage to raise the American Army in France up to 500,000 
early in this year. It is therefore certain that, by the 
beginning of the autumn, the Allies will possess that super- 
iority of numbers that will secure us victory. 
But though there is no burning necessity to tell the people 
of Germany that we intend to carry on an economic war, 
when the struggle of arms is over, there would, it seems to 
me, be nothing lost, if a highly important set of facts were 
put clearly bfefore the enemy and neutrals. They are those 
relating to the inevitable economic, factors in the post war 
situation. To realise what these are, we have only to pro- 
pound two elementary questions. What will be the demand 
nil Europe for those foodstuffs and raw materials necessary 
for feeding the civilians, and for railway and structural re- 
construction and the revival of trade, the supply of which is 
altogether or mainly under Allied control ? 
Nearly two years ago the late German Chancellor, when a 
member of the Prussian Ministry, wamed his compatriots 
that such shortage of food as existed during the war would 
certainly be continued for at least two years after its termina- 
tion. This, he explained, would not be due to the absence 
of supplies, but to the absence of shipping for bringing those 
supplies from abroad to German ports. Other German 
economic authorities have further pointed out that the 
domestic harvests for a longtime can certainly not be expected 
to reach the old level, for a considerable period would be 
necessary before the high farming of pre-war days could be 
re-established. In no country in the world has agriculture 
owed so. much to a lavish use of fertilisers and the other 
constituent factors of intensive cultivation. Until labour 
has regained its normal freedom, until the supply of fertilisers 
bj manufacture or importation, has reached the requisite 
standard, the wheat, barley, oat, and even the potato crops 
cannot reach their old standard, and the fodder problem must 
remain acute. Cereals, meat, cheese, milk, from domestic 
sources only, must continue abnormally low for some time. 
German Importations. 
I am quoting from memory only, but my recollection is 
that German importations of meat and cereals were approxi- 
mately ten per cent, of the total consumption, but that the 
import of fertilisers and feeding stuffs was considerably 
higher. Some economic authorities went so far as to say 
that Germany's old standard of living was dependent on 
foreign supply to the extent of at least thirty per cent. The 
point of the warning Michaelis gave his countrymen was, 
that only a small part of this deficit could be made up for 
some years owing to the restriction of shipping facilities. 
If we pass from food to the transportation and industrial 
problem, we shall probably not be far wrong in saying that 
the first needs for re-starting German industrial life will be 
rolling stock, lubricants, all metals other than iron and zinc, 
cotton, wool, and rubber. These were the staple of Germany's 
oversea imports before the war, and it is upon the renewal 
of these imports that the economic resurrection of Germany 
depends. If we . suppose that Germany is free to enter an 
open market for the purchase of these raw materials abroad, 
and so able freely to acquire these things in competition with 
other Powers, two factors would stand in the way of an 
adequate supply. There would be the enhanced price, and 
a diminished means of bringing that supply to Gennany. 
As in the case of foodstuffs, so here, the shipping shortage 
must for some years be a permanent factor in delaying an 
economic revival. In both cases this delay is inevitable 
and quite independent of deliberate Allied action of any kind 
whatever. 
But the same facts that militate against Germany's imme- 
diate revival will, if the market in materials is left open and if 
freights are to go to the highest bidders, operate equally 
to the disfavour of the people of the allied countries. For 
the rebuilding of great parts of Belgium and of Northern 
France, for the reconstruction of the French, Italian, and 
indeed to a great extent of the British railways, for the re- 
placements of bridges, viaducts, etc., and for the re-establish- 
ment of all our industries, precisely the same raw materials 
will be needed as for similar purposes in Germany. It 
therefore stands to reason that so far as the Allied govern- 
ments control the situation a preference must be given to 
our own people and a discrimination exercised against the 
enemy — and this apart altogether from any sentiment of 
vindictiveness. The question is, what factors of the situation 
are altogether in Allied control ? For practical purposes the 
United States of America, Egypt and British India are the main 
sources of the supply of cotton. Australia is by far the largest 
source of supply for wool, and save for the agricultural pro- 
ducts of Argentina, and the plantation products of the Dutch 
Indies, the extra-European sources of supply for all other raw 
materials are almost, if not altogether, monopolised by those 
who are now in arms against Germany. It will, then, be open 
to the Allies by common action to say that none of these 
products — food, cotton, wool, ores, lubricants, machinery, 
steel, railways, girders, etc. — shall be open to non- Allied 
purchase at all. Apart altogether from any government 
fixing of prices, the raising of prices by German (or Austrian) 
competition can thus, and certainly will thus, be avoided. 
And, as it is certain that it must take a great many years 
before the manufactures of Belgium, France, Italy and 
England are back at their old level, it is equally certain that 
the Allied monopoly of the sources of Allied supply must be 
forcibly maintained. Not till all our needs are met can the 
ex-enemy have anything. There remain the non-Allied 
sources of supply. These it may, or may not, be possible to 
bring within the general arrangement. But it certainly will 
not be to the Allied interest that German competition should 
raise prices in South America or elsewhere, and the Allies 
will undoubtedly hold out inducements to neutrals to join 
the Allied scheme. And if these fail there is more than one 
resource open to us, some of which, no doubt, will not be 
neglected. 
For example : Michaelis, it will be remembered, emphasised 
the shortage of shipping as the predominant cause of Ger- 
many's after-war shortage. A high authority has assured us 
that approximately one half of Germany's pre-war shipping 
is either no longer in existence or no longer in German posses- 
sion. It is to the last degree improbable that considerable — 
if any — replacements of German shipping have been possible 
during hostilities. When peace comes then, it is not reasonable 
to expect more than three million tons of German shipping to 
