Economic Strategy
Scarcely a day passes without some fresh evidence that proves the need of a more strenuous and intelligent prose- cution of the war on the economic side. Two letters have recently appeared in The Times which should be pressed on the attention of the Government, one from a British business man in Athens, the other from the Secretary of the British Chamber of Commerce of Turkey. Turkey, as every- one knows, has given signal evidence of her desire for friendly relations with Britain, and has severed her close economic relations with Germany, receiving assurances that this country would help her to maintain her exports and to purchase elsewhere goods formerly imported from Germany. In the same way Greece, whose people are strongly pro- Ally, had supposed that our blockade policy would lead us to make trade conventions for the purchase of goods from countries which have land communication with Germany. Yet Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria cannot prevail upon our traders to take their tobacco exports, the whole of which would be only a small fraction of our national consumption. For L6,000,000 a year we could buy up all the tobacco that the Balkans produce. The possible small loss that might be incurred by such a transaction is one that ought not to frighten a Government that is spending L6,000,000 a day on the war. The winning of the war depends just as much on financing the blockade in the East as financing the fight- ing forces. It is time the Government realised that.
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