by Joaquin Bochaca
Background:
In October of 1938 Walter Funk, Economic Minister of the Reich, had made a trip to the Balkans during which he concluded massive trade agreements with Yugoslavia, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Rumania was not willing to make such an agreement at that time because of the opposition of King Carol, whose girlfriend, Magda Elena Lupescu, was Jewish.
On November 15, 1938 King Carol of Rumania arrived in London. The lover of the Jewess Lupescu was acclaimed by Anti-Hitlerites in Hyde Park. But no one imagined the monarch had come all the way to London just for the pleasure of lending his presence to a philo-Semitic demonstration.
Carol represented the resistance to German economic expansion in Southeast Europe. Carol had come to London to meet with the bankers of the City of London to combat this expansion.
The purpose of his voyage was indirectly revealed by R. S. Hudson, member of the Crown Council and undersecretary of Foreign Trade, in a speech given in the House of Commons November 30. It was a speech of capital importance, which constituted a virtual declaration of economic war against Germany. Economic war, which in our times always precedes total, political war.
It was a speech that indicated that an important fraction of the English City had now evolved in the direction of Churchill's postulates. Here is a revealing fragment of Hudson’s speech:
Quote:
Germany engages in no treatment unfavorable to England’s markets in Germany; that we must recognize. But what we are complaining about is that with its methods Germany will ruin trade in the entire world.
Our principle problem today is to know how it will be possible for us to confront the new form of German competition in the world. We are able to say that the reason for the economic influence of Germany resides in the fact that she pays the producer countries of Central and Southeast Europe much higher prices than those paid in the world market.
We have examined all the procedures it would be possible for us to apply. The only means consists in organizing our industries in such a way that they would be in a position to oppose German industry and saying to Hitler and his people:
"If you are not disposed to put an end to your present manner of proceeding and come to an agreement with us according to which you promise to sell your merchandise at a price that will ensure you a reasonable profit, we will combat you and vanquish you with your own methods."
From a strictly financial point of view our country is infinitely stronger than any other country in the world; in any case stronger than Germany, and for that reason we enjoy great advantages that will result in our winning the battle.
After this speech of Hudson’s, England revoked Germany's "most favored nation," status which, in its foreign trade treaties, it had maintained with Germany since 1927. The United States did the same, with a curious coincidence of dates.
A brief comment: England and the United States, the champions of liberalism, politically as well as economically "the two are indissolubly linked" became indignant because Germany, by selling its products more cheaply, snatched from them markets that were traditionally theirs. This is outrageous. Where is the famous freedom of commerce?
Hudson spoke of unfair commercial competition. Why unfair? Germany was able to sell its products more cheaply for one reason. One reason only. Because they did not depend on the gold standard, their products were not burdened at every stage of production with the heavy interest charges of the financiers and bankers. Here is the real motive for the 180-degree turn that was taking place in England. Organic Natural Economy, put into practice by National Socialist Germany defeated, for simple arithmetical reasons, the Classic Economy which reigned in England.
But here is the other fact that brought to a pinnacle the irritation of the pleiade of bankers, dealers, ship-owners insurers, and captains of industry who swarmed around the Strand, the City, and Whitehall. On December 10, 1938, the government of Mexico signed an agreement with the Reich, in virtue of which, it would hand over to the latter, in the course of 1939, petroleum to the value of 17 million dollars. This petroleum came from oil wells that a nationalist government of Mexico City had expropriated from the Judeo-Yankees of Standard Oil of Manhattan. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was a barter agreement. The Reich would pay in irrigation apparatus, farm machines, office materials, typewriters and photographic equipment. Moreover, the agreement was concluded on the basis of an oil price much lower than the worldwide rates.
The consequences of all this: Germany would obtain oil without having to put up with Royal Dutch, of the Judeo-British Samuel Deterding, nor with Standard Oil, of the Judeo-American Rockefeller. The transaction would take place without the City touching one miserable shilling through credit operations, financing, guarantees, warrants, freight charges, or insurance premiums. It would be a simple barter, guaranteed by the German government itself, and the transports would be effected in German boats. For the big shots of the City this was plain dismaying. Never mind that Hitler used such procedures in the Balkans or in Turkey; never mind that Central Europe would acclimate to them, but to extend them to Central America condemned London to a certain and inevitable decline.
What’s more, it became manifest that Minister Funk was preparing a trip to Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Santiago de Chile. All this was, for the City, the beginning of the end. As a consequence of this, new and important segments of the English plutocracy, racially Anglo- Saxon, joined Churchill’s camp.
Funk’s trip to Southeast Europe; the taking of Canton and Hankeu [by Japan]; the German- Mexican accord; the announcement of Funk's trip to South America; the progressive weakening of the position of King Carol of Rumania; loss of the Chinese market [by Japan's occupation of Hong Kong, Canton, and Hankeu]; the occupation of Albania by Italy; each one of these events provoked the desertion of another part of the pacifist forces on which Chamberlain had based his politics of conciliation in September [the Munich Agreement]. When these forces acted openly to the benefit of Beck [Polish Foreign Minister], Stalin could relax. The progress toward the East, the Drang nach Osten, that progress which, at the same time it gave land to German plows would eliminate Communism as a potential danger for Europe and the World, would have to stop.
In truth, there still remained, at the beginning of December, 1938, some English businessmen who formed the City’s last stronghold that still opposed the war. But their resistance would soon be swept away by an offensive of New York Zionism, embodied in the “Brain Trust” of President Roosevelt.
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