Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1939, Page 288
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LE NORD
of view did not result in the expression of any wishes to the Danish
Government. The British Government displayed no interest in
the question, and did not indeed make any attempt to carry the
war into the Baltic.
The neutrality rules issued in 1912 had declared that the Da-
nish Government intended to leave the waterways open, but Den-
mark now used her right to modify those rules in accordance with
her own interests, and closed the Great Belt and part of the other
waterways. This was done in accordance with the view that it
would materially diminish the risk of Denmark being drawn into
the war, and no objection was raised against this step at any time.
Trade with the belligerents, especially England and Germany,
presented problems of grave and increasing difficulty. England
and Germany were the two great markets for Danish agricultural
produce, and of the two England was by far the bigger market.
Both countries wanted during the war to keep her own supplies
of Danish agricultural produce at a maximum and those of her
adversary at a minimum. As it was, however, Germany could
stop our exports to England, whereas England could intercept
those supplies of feedstuffs and fertilizers without which it would
be impossible for Danish agriculture to maintain a margin of
production over and above our own needs, or — towards the end
of the war — those of Norway and Sweden, to which countries
part of of our export trade was then being diverted. In conse-
quence, it was only by maintaining an export trade with both
England and Germany, on the basis of trade agreements, that
either of them could be supplied with our agricultural produce
on anything like a considerable and permanent scale.
Both England and Germany came to recognize this, and trade
agreements were negotiated with both of them. It was endeavour-
ed to distribute exports to the two countries as far as possible ac-
cording to the same ratio as in the pre-war years. This caused
considerable difficulties, because the prices of the goods we ex-
ported to Germany were appreciably higher than those of the
goods we exported to England. After the opening of the un-
restricted submarine warfare, and especially after the entry of
the United States into the war, trade fell off. Nevertheless, the
Danish Government succeeded all through the war in regulating
trade so that neither of the two parties raised any objections to
the principle on which it was conducted.
Like Norway and Sweden, Denmark thus succeeded in car-