LEAGUE OF ALL AMERICAS

Southland Times, Issue 23438, 19 February 1938, Page 7

LEAGUE OF ALL AMERICAS

Proposal By Group Of Latin States MILITARY AND NAVAL PACT SUGGESTED MOVE AGAINST POSSIBLE AGGRESSION (United Press Assn—Telegraph Copyright) (Received February 18, 9.50 p.m.) NEW YORK, February 18. A group of Latin-American countries is proposing to the United States an inter-American military and naval alliance of the western hemisphere for mutual protection against possible European and Asiatic aggression, says the Buenos Aires correspondent of The New York Times in an exclusive despatch. The project is intended to put teeth into the inter-American treaties of December 1936 and may presage the formation of an American League of Nations. One of the psychological advantages would be the elimination of Latin America’s traditional aversion to the theory that the United States alone is their protector, under the Monroe Doctrine.

On December 23, 1936, the Inter-American Conference for the maintenance of peace ended a three-weeks’ session with the Foreign Ministers of Paraguay and Bolivia pledging their countries to settle the dispute over the Gran Chaco region by peaceable means.

A speech by the United States Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) was read. Mr Hull, who was suffering from a cold, praised the treaties in which 21 American republics had agreed to consult for common defence in the event of a threat of war, within or without, in an attempt to find a common neutrality course, even if war broke out anywhere in the world. •'We must destroy war, or war will destroy us,” said Mr Hull. He challenged the rest of the world to follow this example in charting the course of peace.