Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 1939. SABOTAGE ATTEMPTS AT LIMA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 1939. SABOTAGE ATTEMPTS AT LIMA.

AT their full face value the reports recently transmitted ’from Chile by American correspondents on the subject of the atmosphere and setting provided in Peru for the Pan-American Conference might, be taken to mean that the solidarity resolution and all that went with it were a solemn, sham and that representatives of the United States and other exponents of liberal, ideas of international fraternity found themselves surrounded by enemies at Lima. It is sufficiently staggering to be told that “the conference functioned under an amazing " dictatorial regime of censorship, intimidation and spying and that? “The Peruvian Government not only tried to control newspaper correspondents, but censored and spied on the delegates.” 1

On the basis of these reports and others of a similar tenoi, Senator Walsh, chairman of the United States Senate Naval Affairs Committee, has declared that the conference has forced people’s attention to the inroads of the Fascist Powers m South America. The Senator undoubtedly is able to point to some concrete evidence in support of that conclusion. It is familiar knowledge that Italy and Germany, and also Japan, are playing an influential part indhe involved affairs.particularly of the less reputable Latin republics, and that even m the stronger South American States like Brazil and the Argentine, totalitarian influence is far from being a factor of negligible importance. It may nevertheless be anticipated that Mr Cordell Hull and his colleagues of the United States delegation to the Pan-American Conference will be able to show that Senator Walsh’s estimate of the outcome of that gathering is in some respects unduly pessimistic.

Full responsibility no doubt rests upon the Peruvian Government, and particularly upon, its dictator, General Oscar Benavides, for conniving at and assisting Italian and German, attempts to sabotage the conference. II . the late ol the Americas depended upon the possibility of inducing dictators like General Benavides to co-operate in international efforts for the common good, the outlook would be very dark indeed. The present regime in Peru, like many that have preceded it, admittedly is a rather debased and corrupt tyranny. While Peru is not. by any means the only example of its kind amongst the Latin republics, there are liner and more promising elements in South American life and even in States like Brazil, which at present are anything but democratic in constitution, these elements are raising increasing demands- for wholesome government, and for international co-operation.

There does not seem to be any doubt that the 1 eiTitiau Government, at the bidding of the European Fascist dictatoiships, did its best to undermine the Pan-American Conference, ft is more important, however, that the tactics adopted to that end failed ignominously. In spite of the extent to which the outlook of the leading Latin republics was dominated by economic considerations, and particularly by a desire to safeguard, or at all events to avoid wantonly endangering, markets in Europe, the agreement reached at Lima can be regarded as nothing less than an impressive mutual assertion of the principle of collective security. The agreement is in the form of a convention providing for compulsory consultation in the event of the peace of any one of the signatories being threatened from any source.

It is true that the declaration embodied in the agreement was not followed up, as it. very reasonably might have been, by the creation of a permanent organisation, and that no stated means uire provided of upholding the agreement, either by means of sanctions against violators of the peace or of an obligation to accent the results of consultation.

All this being said, it remains an outstanding and significant fact that, following upon a period of intensive intrigue by the- European totalitarian Slates, the countries of the two Americas, in spite of their diverse quality and uneven development. agreed unanimously upon what has been summed up fairly as a noteworthy extension and enlargement of the Munroe doctrine.

Against the contention that the solidarity resolution was a mere’form of worlds, there is to be set. amongst other things, the plainly-worded assurance given by Mr Cordell Hull when he said, at Lima : —

Let no one doubt for a moment that the United States will maintain adequate defence for the American republics, with the co-op-eration of some nations in the other hemisphere, who are faithfully carrying forward the principles underlying world order, peace and economic restoration.

It may be impracticable to exclude European totalitarian inti'io'ue in the circumstances that, rule in many parts of Latin America at the present day. but the United States should be well able to provide its own remedy against the dangers envisaged by Senator Walsh when he said:—

The germination of hostile feelings in the Americas is making possible the establishment of air and naval .bases which can only be construed as a threat against our national security.

The greatest obstacle to the full working understanding that the United States desires with the Latin republics is raised, not by totalitarian intrigue, bill by the dependence of many of these republics on European markets. The United States is not' able to offer these countries substitute and alternative markets and in this wav, as in some others, the impossibility of completely isolating the affairs of the Western _ Hemisphere from those of Hie rest of the world is made manifest. _ .As in the partly parallel circumstances of the British Empire, the ultimate remedy for the economic servitude to which the less developed Latin American countries are reduced by their dependence on external markets no doubt is to be found in expediting in these countries a more balanced economic development.