AMERICAN ALARM

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 April 1936, Page 4

AMERICAN ALARM

AT LEAGUE ACTIVITY. President Roosevelt’s suggestion to the beads of twenty Latin-American republics, that the peace agencies of the western hemisphere should be consolidated at an inter-Americau conicuence. is likely to have as its greatest obstacle the memberships of South American countries in L.c League of Nations, writes John White in the “San Francisco Chronicle.” The Monroe Doctrine is another stumbling block, but it is easier to get around. Opinion in South America is favourable to Mr. Roosevelt’s idea in principle, but it probably would require considerable diplomatic work to convert this favourable attitude into some practical working arrangement. rhere has been no time in the last fifty years when the South American attitude towards the United States was so propitious for such an attempt as it is right now. The success of the Roosevelt “good neighbour” policy has somewhat allayed fear of I lie Monroe Doctrine. Latin-Ameri-cans still look upon it as the cornerstone of the old “dollar diplomacy” upon which the “Colossus of the North” built its widely dreaded imperialistic policy. But the doctrine uas had so many interpretations by different Secretaries of State at Washington that it seems probable teat some satisfactory arrangement could be made which would convince •ne Latin-American Governments that they need not fear it.

South American memberships in the League, however, presents a serious barrier to any attempt by the United States to organise LatinAmerican countries into anything which might some day rival the Geneva institution. All but two of the South American republics are members of the League.

< Whether or not its action has been intentional, the League in the last few years has been seriously interfering with and weakening the work of the Pan-American Union by sending to Pan-American conferences delegates detrimental to the League's prestige. At the Pan-American sanitary conference at Buenos Aires in November. 1931. the League delegation included a prominent British surgeon who prevented the adoption of quarantine regulations for the importation of jute into South American ports. The Pan-American Sanitary Bureau’s investigation had shown that bubonic plague was imported in jute, and the bureau's delegate proposed certain disinfection regulations to ensure the destruction of fleas before the landing of jute cargoes. Such measures would have been a reflection on Britain’s rich trade in Indian jute, so the League delegate succeeded in getting the proposed disinfection dropped. At Montevideo, League agents had a well-organised plan to get the PanAmerican conference to authorise a hookup by which the League expected to make the Pan-American Union its subsidiary regional agency in the western hemisphere. The secretary-general of the conference had been a League employee. He asked the League secretariat to send a delegate to Montevideo with a report on what the League had done on topics which were on the conference’s agenda. Secretary Hull, informed of the scheme, took Immediate and effective steps to block it. He made a definite .stand to preserve the regional aspect of Pan-Americariism as a co-operative relationship of American republics and •o prevent its assuming world-wide interlocking relationships. MR. HULL’S PLAN. Secretary Hull went to Montevideo witn a well-devised plan to have the Pan-American Conference halt the Chaco War. All South and Central American republics and the United States joined in exerting the strongest possible moral pressure on the belligerents and finally arranged a truce and organised a peace conference to run at the same time as the PanAmerican Conference. , A League of Nations sub-committee hurried to Montevideo from the Chaco, insisted that peace negotiations properly belonged under the League’s jurisdiction, and demanded that the Pan-American Conference hand over the peace conference to them. The League’s report to the conference stated that a Chaco settlement had been delayed by the peace efforts of agencies other than the League, such as the commission of neutrals at Washington and the ABCP group of Powers meeting at Buenos Aires. The Montevideo conference acceded to the League’s insistence and handed the peace conference to the subcommittee. which immediately moved the negotiations to Buenos Aires to get away from the influence of the Pan-American Conference.

The League’s peacemakers finally drew up a draft peace treaty and handed it to the Bolivian and Paraguayan delegations with the ultimatum that it must either be accepted or rejected in its entirety within ten days, despite the fact that it contained several provisions which the belligerents had already rejected. The League’s solution was promptly rejected.

I The Chaco War continued for another year and a-half, during which it created bitter enmity which had not ' existed earlier and which almost made it impossible for the American nations finally to terminate the strugrrle. When peace eventually was arranged it was arranged by American nationals. Fver since then, however, the League has been making a determined endeavour to win South American support. It apparently has succeeded in convincing South Americans that it is the world-wide parent organisation for peace and allied activities, and that unless any other organisation having similar ideals operates as a League subsidiary there will be interference with the League’s work.

The Pan-American Conference at Montevideo suggested the establishment of a Pan-American labour institute, with a seat at Buenos Aires, to handle all labour problems of Ameri- | can countries. The Uruguayan delegate at the January labour conference in Santiago proposed that steps be taken to organise this bureau. The steering committee, which was dominated by officers of the International Labour Organisation at Geneva, killed the motion without letting the delegates consider it. The League has shown ability to publicise its South. American activities much better than the Pan-Ameri-can Union. The average newspaper reader in South America does not know that the Pan-American Union even exists. On the question of public health alone the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau has helped Chile to i reduce her death rate from 31 to 23 per thousand and has reduced Guayaquil’s plague and yellow fever death | rate from 68 to 28 per thousand, but I few know about these achievements.