Evening star., 1932-01-03
(continued From Third Page.)

and rollers and trucks. The roads
should be soundly built, depression or
no depression.
This spirit permeates the life of
Latin America today. What can be
done is being done, but machines-new
ones or, temporarily, old ones from
the Junk k-heap-multiply the effort and
make the pesos go farther than they
ever went before. Venezuela lays down
new highways and plans q great new
port, as a means Of employing men
irom the idle oil fields, but, neverthe-
less, modern equipment and modern
methods are to prevail, and every
muscle turned TO the work must be
multiplied by the use Of machines
ftted to the task in hand.
Machine Trade Encouraging.
One Of the outstanding breaks in
the clouds Of world trade is that belief
IN and demand for machines in the
lands that share this hemisphere with
US. Our total exports to Latin Amer
lea in 1880 were about double those
of 1918, but in the great machinery"
classification our 1880 exports were
2ia times those Of 1918. We shipped
8 times the value in agricultural
machinery and is times the automo-
bileS in 1880 that we did in 1918.
In one category Of motor trucks-a
vital and integral part of the agricul-
tursl, industrial and machine-age de-
velopment of Latin America-1930
showed a comfortable increase over
even the mighty boom year of 1929
Another class, refrigeration machinery,
was also one Of the few listings in the
export table to mark an increase in
1880 over 1929.
The age of the machine may be
coming in for hard knocks in its
home town"-that is, Main street
but out where national development Is
so important that men think about it
and work for it, even in times Of de-
preston, the machine age is in quite
good ooor. In fact, they are ready
for little more of It, Tumbling COM
modify prices, disappearing export bal
ances, revolutions and troubles with
foreign debts have stirred Latin Amer
ica to challenge the world with q
definite turn TO new version Of the
machine age.
Latin America has been producer,
primarily, Of raw materials and in
both mining and agriculture the coun-
tries have been steadily increasing
users Of machinery. Indeed, In agr1-
culture, the machine age came long
ago to those lands. The wheat grow
harvester years before it was intro
ouced into general use in this country.
While itinerant threshing crews were
still making their annual trek from
Southern Kansas northward with the
ripening grain, the Argentine wheat
growers we're doing their own harvest
ing and threshing in their compact
combines and competing easily with
us in world markets.
Excavation Machines Used.
American earth-moving machinery has
been one Of the great instruments of the
opening Of every tropical region in re-
cent years. In this, American groups,
clearing and draining banana planta-
tions and sugar fields, have led the way,
but other agricultural industries and
public works have followed. Every field
of tropical enterprise can count the ad-
vsntageS Of the use of machinery and
its redoubling Of the strength Of the
human hands that once fought alone
sgsinst the jungle. That battle is be-
ing won today because machinery has
come to serve us: it was being lost,
steadily, through the long procession of
history everywhere, until these new in
struments came to change oldtime
methods. The future of our civilization
chimes. This is certainly true If the
tropics are VITAL as they seem now to
be vital, to the progress OF that civiliza-
ton toward its distant goal of human
welfare.
The ancient civilizations of Latin
America were all-with the exception Of
the Inca In Peru, where llamas were
available-built virtually with the bare
hands and muscles Of men and women.
There were no beasts OF burden, other
than the llama, in all the length of the
Americas. The Spanish conquest was
achieved virtually afoot; Cortez had Is
horses in his army that conquered
Mexico, Pizarro q in Peru and Alvar-
ado's army tramped the jungle from
Mexico to Guatemala with only few
horses for the leaders. The opening of
the deep interior was done, in large
part, without animals. Only today,
with the airplane, are men opening
wilderness which until the late 20s of
this century could not be penetrated
save by expeditions In which each man,
white, black or brown, carried his own
food as well as his arms. Thus, on
down to our own day, the machine age,
did the limitations Of human physical
strength and endurance bind the de-
velopment Of Latin America with its ap-
palling obstacles.
The cramping force of the dependence
on hand labor extends far beyond trans
portation problems, however, in explain
ing the formerly slow development Of
Latin America and especially Of tropical
Latin America-into which claSsiflca-
ton about four-fifths Of the area falls.
The labor required in all agriculture
before the development Of machinery
was enormous. In the great plantation
-. 6N1I aol mr. 9pYtltN hot
been dedicated this is multiplied many
fold. The classic example is the sub
tropical crop Of coffee, whose yield an
scre is more or less comparable to that
of wheat but which requires approx
rnately 10 times the labor with hand
cultivation, wedding, pruning and final
" the tremendous hand task OF the
harvest.
Labor Not Plentiful.
Under a theory that Latin America Is
O region Of abundant as well as cheap
labor, this demand for redoubled hands
would not have been a serious question,
but Latin America is not, and never has
been, a region of abundant labor sup
plies. Cheap, yes, but not abundant.
Contrary to general opinion-an opln-
ion that has been wrong for about 400
years-there is no great surplus OF labor
in any part Of Latin America. Economic
pressure has brought many Of the In
dian and mixed blood populations under
the yoke Of production in the mines
and plantations of today, but the long
history Of peonage in many Of the coun-
tries should be indication enough that
there Is no plethora Of labor there.
Wage slavery has been the rule at one
time or another in every Latin Ameri-
can country producing great plantation
crops for the last two centuries. 1t per-
sists widely even today, direct inner
itance from the more actual slavery Of
the Spanish and Portuguese era. Time
and a changing social attitude on the
part Of governments and employers have
modified the conditions somewhat, but
men still work under the shadow Of
debts deliberately forced upon them in
order to obtain their labor and from