Straws in the Wind

Germany's small neutral neighbors have diligently watched their steps to avoid bruising the Nazi toe. Last week two of them deliberately bruised it.

Swedish Punch. Neutral Sweden stopped down the flow of high grade Swedish iron ore to Germany (10,000,000 tons in 1943) to a trickle.

The beleaguered Germans had diverted their own ships from the ore run to evacuate troops. Then the cautious Swedish underwriters decided that Allied bombs made German ports unsafe for Sweden's ships. Except for what Finland's trifling tonnage could carry, the delivery of ore was at a standstill.

Swiss Movement. In London, six months of patient dickering among U.S., British, Swiss diplomats ended in a deal. The Germans were the losers.

In exchange for permission to import some of her own stores of cotton and wool shut off by the Allied blockade, Switzerland agreed: 1) to trim by one third her $60,000,000 yearly sales of metal goods (machinery, precision instruments, etc.) to Germany; 2) cut sales of ball bearings to 10%, ammunition to 5%, of what the Nazis got in 1942.

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