EYES ON SOUTH AMERICA

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 40, 17 February 1931, Page 8

EYES ON SOUTH AMERICA

There are various British missions to South America. The Prince of Wales and his brother have been traversing, partly by air, the backbone range of the continent and the republics of the west coast; the British trade delegation, it is announced to-day, has left London for Argentina to open the British Trade Exhibition at Buenos Aires, where presently the Princes will be; and it has been reported that "Miss England," record speed-boat, will be seen in action there too. The trade delegation (motor and other manufacturers) will be following in the footsteps of the other British delegation that, a year or two ago, drafted a provisional trade agreement with President Irigoyen, since deposed. In Brazil, also the scene of a recent revolution-of-Government, there is a further mission, conducted by the "Doctor of Finance," Sir Otto Niemeyer. In financial as in bodily ills, drastic medicine is never popular; therefore the recent cablegram indicating that Sir Otto Niemeyer had met in Brazil, as in Australia, with certain Press opposition occasions no surprise. Criticisms of that character do not answer the immensely important question: Will it pay Australia and South America to inflate, and to get farther and farther away from the gold standard, for the purpose of postponing the financial purge? That question concerns New Zealand very directly, because a passing intident in the adverse exchange position is that Australian and South American exporters receive a much higher premium than New Zealand's competing exporters receive. Over and above that, the [political-financial future of South America's great republics, carrying hundreds of millions of British capital, is of world interest. New regimes are on their trial.