VAST TERRITORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 September 1942, Page 4

VAST TERRITORY

IMPORTANCE OF BRAZIL

STRATEGIC COASTLINE. FORMER AXIS LEANINGS. Brazil’s declaration of war on the Axis determined not only its own destiny, doubtful for so long, but probably also that of the whole of South America, for Brazil is the largest political division of the continent, with an area larger than the United States, three times the size of Argentina, and b 5 times that of England. Its area. is 3,285’,318 square miles, comprising three-sevenths of the continent, with a strategically important coastline of 3600 miles. . . The political and economic allegiance of Brazil has been the stake in the past 15 years in a propaganda and trade war between the new and the old worlds, with the United States and Germany as the principal bidders.

PRESIDENT A DICTATOR. The Brazilian President, Dr G. D. Vargas, who has been a virtual dictator since 1930, began by allowing National-Socialist and Fascist organisations great liberty of action, and encouraged the Integralista (Green Shirts) movement, which was the Brazilian Fascist Party. In this he had the support of the one-third of the population who are of Italian descent and of the strong German and Japanese minorities. A barter system of trade was offered by Germany and grasped by Brazil as a solution of its trade difficulties with the United States and, to a less extent', Britain, to which it was defaulting on large loans. In 1938, German-Brazilian trade was valued at £30,000,000 a year. TREATY WITH UNITED STATES. The United States, which had been becoming increasingly alarmed at penetration of South America by Axis influence, scored a triumph with the signature in March, 1939, of a trade treaty under which advances totalling 120,000,000 dollars were to be made to end Brazil’s necessity for barter trading. Brazil undertook to resume payment of principal and interest on about 350,000,000 dollars in defaulted bonds held by United 'States citizens. Other provisions were the establishment of a central bank, financed by the United States, and a United States Export-Import Bank loan of 25,000,000 dollars to free Brazil’s exchanges and permit imports from the United States. Although President Vargas later pledged himself to the defence of the Western Hemisphere against aggression, his country’s neutrality and the freedom accorded Axis diplomats continued to be sources of danger, especially in view of the manner in which Brazil’s extensive coastline dominates the Caribbean and the South Atlantic. GERMAN DIAMOND SMUGGLING. Early last year it was revealed that the German diplomatic service was engaged in large-scale smuggling of vital. industrial diamond supplies, which the Brazilian Government was unwilling to interfere with. Japanese influence was also menacing, and in March this year- it was stated that there was a well-equipped Japanese organisation, 25,000 strong, in the State of Sao Paulo. Japanese immigration began in 1908, and has reached a total of 200,000, Japanese colonisation being carefully planned, highly centralised and swift. Brazil is bounded by all the South American republics except Chile and Ecuador, and its territory also touches the three Guianas. There are three very irregular divisions of its surface —the great river basins of the Amazon in the north and the La Plata in the south, and a vast highland region filling in the eastern projection of the continent and extending westward almost to the Bolivian frontier. This plateau, comprising half the area of the republic, is richest in resources and population, and is characterised the “real Brazil.” No country in the world in the possession of a European race is said to possess so large a proportion of land available for the support of human life. EXPORTS OF IMPORTANCE. The cultivated area for the principal crops is over 32,250,000,000 acres, and the ten most important items exported in 1940 were coffee, cotton, canned meats, hides and skins, cocoa, carnauba wax, castor beans, and precious and semi-precious stones. Rubber production has for long been a declining industry, while stock raising' and the export of meat, hides and wool have been increasing. The mineral wealth of Brazil is vast, but little developed. Manganese is exported exclusively to the United States;; gold production is about £lO,- | 000,000 annually; and the other princiI pal minerals are cement, diamonds, iron and coal. The iron deposits are I in course of development, local manufacture of steel has begun, and in 1940 production of petroleum started. The census of 1940 recorded a population of 41,357,000, of whom 1,200,000 were of Germanic stock, including 200,000 of recent immigration, and 200,000 were Japanese. DEFENCE FORCES. Brazil has a small, but useful, navy and three naval dockyards. Her two 19,000-ton battleships are of pre-Great War construction, but have been extensively refitted in recent years, and mount 12 12in. guns each. There are two light cruisers and eight destroyers and torpedo-boats, with nine building. The army consists of 112,000 regulars, with 200,000 reserves. Civil aviation has been extensively developed with the assistance of United States, German, French and Italian experts, but Brazil’s air force is unimportant.