The Baltic States as a British Market in the Past and Future

After the present war only a few countries in the world will have escaped damage through hostilities. The biggest sufferers will be the European countries. The means of transport, the arteries of economic life, will be left in Europe in a most deplorable condition. Agricultural production will have declined from lack of man- and horse-power, neglect, requisitioning and plundering. An immense number of industrial plants will have been destroyed, whilst some industries will have been transported from the occupied countries into Germany at the behest of the planners of the “New Order.” The destruction and dislocation caused through war to the economic life of the European countries will be on an unprecedented scale and one can well imagine that to restore it, besides the needs of relief, an enormous amount of means of transport, agricultural machinery, seeds, fertilizers, all kinds of machinery, spare parts, textiles and other merchandise will be required.

The British industries, normally supplying all the above-mentioned goods, have since the beginning of the war been converted mainly or solely into war industries. When the war is over, all these industries will have to return to peace-time production. In doing this, careful examination of the scope of future requirements at home and abroad will have to be undertaken by the industrial groups and individual industries in order to ascertain the direction and extent of restoration of their industries. The existence of such plans will definitely assist the industries to avoid loss of time, unnecessary errors and expense whilst changing back to normal production, and to speed up post-war reconstruction in the United Kingdom and abroad. It is therefore to the interest of British 31 industry that the post-war needs of European countries should be carefully studied. It is certain that preparation to satisfy European requirements at the end of the war will not only assure British industries a good start on European markets, but may also prevent the future uneconomic re-industrialization of countries that have been denuded of their industries by the Germans. Information as to the conditions of economic life in the occupied countries is available, although not to the full extent, and the compilation of a list of requirements of each state is therefore possible.

If this report on post-war trade problems and requirements of the Baltic States facilitates even to a small degree the task of planners of post-war trade, groups of industries and individual exporters in the United Kingdom, it will have served its purpose.

The LIBRARY DEPARTMENT OF STATE stamp indicates the monograph was accessioned on July 3, 1943.