ENTER BRAZIL.

Evening Star, Issue 24281, 24 August 1942, Page 2

ENTER BRAZIL.

The fact that Brazil, pushed into hostilities by the remorseless sinking of her merchant ships, is now at war with Germany and Italy promises some definite advantages to the Allies. Even though her direct participation in the war should be limited to recruits added to American forces, her harbours will be available as Allied bases for operations against the submarines and as a moans of keeping check on Axis movements from the West African coast, in the zone' where South America and Africa come closest. Brazil contains almost every known mineral, including some of the greatest strategic importance, which can now. bo developed for the Allies. Agreements for the development of iron mines and of rubber plantations in the Amazon basin had already been made with the United States, by whom the finance will he supplied. Unfortunately the Brazilian rubber industry, which once hud a world monopoly, through the competition of -Malaya and other causes had sunk to insignificance during recent decades. New trees are being planted, and it was hoped that commercial production would begin next year, hut it takes seven years for a rubber tree to reach maturity.

The President of Brazil, Getnlio Vargas, lias been called “ easily the most important political figure in Latin America.” For ten years he has controlled the country by means of a benevolent dictatorship; there is not even a Government “ party,” one explanation being that there is no need of one, almost everyone of importance being on the Vargas side. He is described also as the only dictator who smiles, and the onlv dictator for whom his people show tlioir affection by giving him a nickname. No charge of corruption has ever been brought against his rule, and liis partisans declare that ho has done more in ten years for Brazil than any succession of rulers before him did in a hundred. Dr Oswald Aranha, his Foreign Minister, is described by Mr John Gunther as “ one of the great Americans—bright-minded, audacious, bland, acquisitive, candid.” The Foreign Minister of Uruguay lias indicated that his country is likely to bo the next to declare war against Germany and Italy, and as it was declared by the last PanAmerican Congress that an injury to one Latin-American State would be considered an injury to all, the example of Brazil may have other imitators.