Evening star., 1939-04-18

no item can be taken from the buyer
without the approval OF q court,
which passes on the wear and tear
suffered by the reclaimed item and
decides what proportion of the
money already paid should be re-
funded to the unfortunate pur-
chaser.
However, this law is deemed slen-
der protection for the property of
company whose officials are re-
garded as having been selected with
great care by the foreign nation
involved.
No amount of protection seemed
formidable enough to prevent the
weird antic which attended the birth
of Aeroposta Argentina, the Argen-
tine company headed by Ernest
Pueyrredon. This company started
with a single asset, the $1,O0O,OOO
Gen. Pacheco Airport outside Buenos
Aires. Its first move was to aban-
don its solitary impressive asset and
use the German airport at Outlines,
where its planes can act as feeder
for German planes. The Gen.
Pacheco Airport is weed-grown now
and used only by amateurs.
The uses to which Germany is
putting its dominance wherever at
tanned are ostensibly solidly COM
mercial, but there are certain by
products involved for which there
are no columns in a merchants
ledger book. On all German lines,
the flight personnel is entirely Ger
man, and, in all the native COM
panies which are declared to be
German-controlled, the personnel is
predominantly German. Pilots of
the Cia de Aviacion de Uruguya, for
instance, 60 so far as to wear Condor
insignia on their uniforms.
The German explanation for this
is that Germans know best how to
handle German planes. The Ar
gentine and Brazilian governments,
after period of perturbation, passed
law requiring the use of native
pilots. Foreign air companies, how
ever, were granted time to train ma
tive pilots in the use of modern
transport equipment before recalling
their own men.
In Brazil, there is very in
structive difference between the
training methods of the Germans
and Americans. Panair do Brasil,
subsidiary of Pan-American Air
ways, selects native pilots for train
ing almost entirely from the ranks
of the army. navy and commercial
schools of Brazil. The Germans
show a marked preference for ma
tives of German extraction, who,
despite their birth in South America,
are regarded as German citizens un-
der the ruling of the Hitler regime.
There is a vast amount of riding
back and forth in German cockpits
by native Brazilians, but there are
grumbles to be heard to the effect
that the men are rarely if ever al
lowed to touch the controls. Only
two natives have been turned out
as accredited pilots after nearly
three years of training. Both of
these are of German extraction and
have been shipped to Germany for
further instruction in flying and
also in Nazi dogma. The Germans
make no secret of their intention
to give a tWo-year course in the
Reich to all native pilots. Their
explanation relates to certain equip
ment which they declare is avail
able only in Germany, but it is an
explanation received with a know
ing smile.
Pilots All Military Men.
All German and, in fact, italian
pilots and air officials in South
America are military men. The
pilots are changed frequently to give
a greater number of them expert
ence, and there are numerous stories
to be heard of the manner in which
these military men operate trans
port planes. They are reported to do
an inordinate amount of blind flying
and to go through heavy weather
and fog instead of skirting them in
order to gain the kind of flying ex-
perience useful to military pilots.
American businessmen play Sec
ond fiddle to no one in the art Of
pushing the competition around,
but the Germans and Italians here
are backed by the resources of their
government. They can pour huge
amounts of equipment into this con-
tinent for reasons that are not
related to profit-chasing. Germany,
in particular. is the only nation in
the world that manufactures air.
planes on a mass-production basis,
and thus is under continually
exaggerated necessity of disposing of
its produce.
And the German government can
do what American business, with
its requirements of a dollar return
on a dollar investment, cannot-go,
for example, into Western Brazil,
the heart of South America, a thor
oughly undeveloped region in which
are located nickel mines operated
by a German syndicate.
This is rich country and, no doubt,
transportation will make
it develop into something valuable
in the future. Perhaps it is only
incidental that this region, on which
most present-day flying studies by
Germans in Brazil are concentrated,
is in close proximity to the Pacific,
the Caribbean and the Panama
Canal.
(Copyright 1899. by the North American
Newspaper Alliance, Inc.)