Digest of World Press Opinion

The New Republic, commenting upon the Franco-German agreement on the Saar, states:

The French capitulation virtually tells the voting public in the Saar district that every vote against Germany is a vote wasted. It leaves the anti-Fascist groups, which have borne the brunt of its fight, in a dangerously isolated position. There is nothing in the Franco-German agreement that gives the political opponents of the Third Reich security or protection against its vengeance, nothing to prevent a general round-up of these courageous fighters on the day after the election and their arrest in prisons and concentration camps—unless they flee from the Saar before the vote is taken.

COMMITTEE REPORTS ON AUSTRIA, POLAND

The Joint Foreign Committee in London issued a report on the Jewish situation in different countries which states inter alia:

The equal rights of Jews under the new Austrian Constitution are being interpreted in a manner which cannot but arouse apprehension. There are only two Jews in the Councils recently set up, one in the State and one in the Cultural Council. No Jews have been appointed to the Councils of Industry, Trade or Finance. The Chancellor, Dr. Schuschnigg, in a broadcast address a short time ago, drew a distinction between the rights that should be granted to those citizens who had been Austrians for generations and those who had recently been naturalized. This suggestion of different grades of citizenship has caused much perturbation among Austrian Jewry.

Reports from Poland continue to paint a gloomy picture of the increasing impoverishment of the Jewish population there, the further ejection of Jews from their economic positions and renewed activities of the anti-Semitic parties. Jewish parliamentary representation has now been made of little effect by a new Parliamentary Ordinance, which makes it necessary to have seventy signatures before an interpellation can be put in the Sejm. With the small number of Jewish Deputies in the present Sejm, it will be difficult for Jewish grievances to be adequately represented in the Polish Legislature.

THE EFFECTS HERE OF THE BOYCOTT

Did the anti-German boycott in America affect the import of German goods into the United States?

The New York Times editorially gives the following answer to this question:

The American “boycott” against German imports has been comparatively ineffective; the “new import plan” which went into effect in Germany on September 24, on the other hand, has been very effective in reducing American exports to that country. This is one of the interesting facts revealed by the October figures of our foreign trade. American exports to Germany fell from nearly $18,000,000 worth in October of last year to only $6,000,000 in the same month of this year, while imports from Germany fell from less than $8,000,000 worth in October, 1933, to $5,000,000 worth this October. The Nazis came into power in February, 1933, and the boycott, it is true, was in effect here a year ago; but the comparative figures of our exports to and imports from Germany in October of four successive years show clearly enough what has happened on both sides of the balance:

Exports Imports

1931 $17,326,503 $12,071,259

1932 15,754,264 7,151,846

1933 17,719,610 7,666,577

1934 6,274,773 5,212,938

The greatest fall in our imports from Germany occurred in 1932, before any boycott was talked of. Compared with October of that year our exports to Germany have dropped 60 per cent, while our imports from that country have declined only 27 per cent, and even part of this decline may be attributable to the Nazis’ own policies in restricting imports.