AMERICA’S FLEET

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1938, Page 8

AMERICA’S FLEET

ATLANTIC NEXT YEAR , NEW YORK, June 8. After four years in Pacific wafers, the United Stale’s Navy will return to the Atlantic early next year. 'Pho shift will bo temporary only, and 1 is generally accepted 1 as a gesture ol watnitig against. Nazi and Fascist activities in South America, chiefly in Brazil. Recent, developments in Brazil have been somewhat disturbing to the 1 Administration at Washingiton. Intensive propaganda, subversive to democracy, has been under way for the past four years. That Brazil regarded the situation as sedious' is demonstrated by the rapidity with which it was' “purged.” Within a. very short period. Nazi agitators were rounded up and placed under arrest. In the ensuing weeks, hundreds applied to return 10 Germany. 'Phoir voluntary repatriation is intepeted as an admission that the campaign of “totalisatrian idee,logy” has failed as far as 1 Latin America is concerned. One significant illustration of the Brazilian view is the re-ena'ctment of capital punishment, which, in the past decade, has been possible only under military law. Senator Borah, member of the Foreign Relations Committee under several Administrations, is wholeheartedly in agreement with the transfer of liio fieri to the Atlantic, and with the official announcement that ‘the area to be covered by Fleet Problem No. 20 will extend at least as far south as Hie Equator"—in other wards, the coast of Brazil. His view is supported in quarters close Io Piesident Roosevelt. It is felt that a demonstration of naval strength is needed to impress Germany and Italy with the desirability of foregoing any effort to promote totalitarianism in South America, as well as to assure Latin Americans that the United States will help to prevent the overthrow of their constitutional Governments.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE There has been increasing anxiety in' the capital over ideological and economic pcnctation of Latin America by advocates of dictatorship. This anxiety led to various proposals, one of which was the establishment of a powerful radio station to counteract European 1 broadcasts to South America. There are indications 1 that the United States Governments contemplates a long-term policy in this regard. The Monroe Doctrine has been dusted off and taken down from the shelves. Great Britain, not bound by it. took a firmer stand than the United States in' the seizure by the Mexican. Government of the British and American oil properties—firmer, to the extent that, for the third time since the Great War, Mexico has severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom. The Monroe Doc<rine has been broadened at successive Pan-American Conferences to give' it a continental character, by a pledge of consultation among Governments in the Americas in case of a threat of aggression from without. Due ter reciprocal treaties, mainly, United States' trade 1 with Latin America has 1 expanded considerably. In 1937. experts to Mexico increased by 44 per cent., to Argentina 65 per cent., to Brazil 40 per cent., and to Latin America, as a whole, from 40 to 90 per cent. German exports increased by 30 per cent., and Italian by less than two per. cent. Argentine developments demonstrate also the futility of the efforts of totalitarian Governments to extend 1 heir influence into these republics. The nei result of recent foreign propaganda has led 10 nationalism being intensified. Latin America is content with its chosen form of government. Its perennial revolutions are purely domestic. The action of the United States in moving the whole c.f its navy into South American waters merely supplements public opinion, from the Rio Grande, to The Horn, that European ponetration will not be tolerated.