Trade with the Balkans
The announcement of the Government's intention to set up an English commercial corporation to assist in the development of British trade with the Balkans synchronised with the arrival in this country of the British diplomatic representatives from Turkey, Hungary and the four Balkan States. Though the conference at the Foreign Office has doubtless covered the whole field of Balkan affairs, it is the economic aspect that at the moment looms largest. Germany is applying every sort of pressure, economic and political, to secure an extension of her trade in South-Eastern Europe to the point where she would have a stranglehold. She is ready enough to offer high prices, but she pays only in marks that can be exchanged for German goods, with which the Balkan markets are nearly saturated. The trading company which the British Government is financing is not created with the object merely of buying to frustrate Germany—such opera- tions belong to the sphere of the Minister of Economic War- fare. Its function is to promote genuine trade presenting financial risks which the private trader will not generally undertake. It will promote the marketing of raw materials from the Empire as well as manufactures from Great Britain. There is much that the Balkans used to obtain through Germany that can no longer be had from her, and under war conditions there are great opportunities for in- creasing our purchases from them.
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