AXIS PROPERTY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1942, Page 4

AXIS PROPERTY

BEING SOLD IN CENTRAL AMERICA MONEY PROCEEDS HELD FOR OWNERS. BUT MAY BE DRAWN ON IN MEETING DAMAGE CLAIMS. The United States Commerce Department said in a recent statement “Axis property and assets are beginning to be sold in Central America to Central Americans.”

The statement said El Salvador had taken the lead in establishing such a policy. The Department added that this contrasted with the first World War when Latin America generally permitted Germany and her allies to “pick up where they left off,” after hostilities.

“One of the liabilities which the hemisphere has faced during the period with the Axis was preparing for actual warfare,” the department said, “has been the network of Axis-control-led commercial and industrial organisations, the great strength of which was due primarily to the fact that they had been allowed to continue through the last war and provide the nucleus for further growth and both economic and political power. ’ Under the El Salvador plan. Axis property will be sold and only the money received from such sales will be held for the Axis owners. From these funds, however, the Government may confiscate damages suffered from U-boat or other Axis attacks. In the United States no policy on such matters has been announced. Tentatively enemy properties are being taken over by Leo T. Crowley, alien property custodian, and placed under American management, without regard to whether the properties eventually will be sold or returned.