The mention, in a New York message this week; of
the arrest of two members of the crews of Swiss merchant-vessels on charges of espionage may have caused some minor surprise to persons who specialise in geography, a life on the ocean wave not being one of the major preoccupations of the Swiss. But the fact is that the Swiss flag is now commonly seen in certain seas, and for special reasons. Switzerland has to import a large part of her food, and supplies of certain raw materials, from overseas. What is more, she has to fetch them herself, for no one else has ships to spare for her needs. So she has bought up any vessels she could acquire from small countries like Greece—having mainly to content herself with what Britain had not bought up first—and with these she fetches cargoes from Lisbon (to which supplies have been brought by larger vessels from various quarters), and lands them at Genoa, whence they find their way by rail to their destination. A few Swiss ships, not many, are capable of plying direct between Italy and America, and it was on one of these, obviously, that
arrested at New York were serving. All this, of course, free passage through the blockades imposed by the Allies
Axis respectively. Why the two belligerents agree to this, under what conditions, is a long and fantastic story which no room to enter into here.
Previous page
