The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-09-02

spring, but SO far Brigadier Maxwell has not permitted the
 machinery to move. With one stroke of the pen he has un-
 done all the diplomatic negotia-
 tiOns with Brazil.
 NOTE-In another instance of this kind, $72,000 worth of INT ordered by Argentina and ready to be loaded on a ship dispatched especially for this purpose was di- rected elsewhere. Finally, just as the ship was getting ready to leave empty-handed, the British made available quantity of TINT that they were about to ship to England.
 ARGENTINA PRESS REBUFFED
 Another good friend of the Uni- ted States in Latin America is the powerful newspaper, La Na- cion, in Bueros Airese. It has been a vigorous opponent of Hitler and a strong friend of the United States. It exercises tremendous in- fluence throughout South Ameri- ca. Tn midsummer La Nacion needed to depair its type, asked to buy a small amount of zinc in the United States. But so far Gen. eral Maxwell has not cut red tape sufficiently to permit the zinc to move. The State Department has been dinning at him. The Argen- tina Embassy has been requesting speed. But nothing has happened.
 Thus we promote Latin Amer ican good will at present.
 NOTE--Argentina packers have large orders from U. s. firms for canned beef. But, because of ob- structions here, the packers can't get the necessary tin cans to fill the orders. Naturally this does not endear the U. s. to Argentine bus mess men.
 RED TAPE MOGUL
 Some of this shutting-off of Latin American shipments is rec- essary for National Defense, but much of 1t is plain, ordinary red tape which could be cut by any one save tape-worshipping Gen. eral Maxwell.
 General Maxwell is a regular army officer who takes great pains to impress upon other government officials the fact that he reports only to the President of the Uni- ted States and can slip in and out of the White House like an animated shuttlecock.
 Result of General Maxwell's activities is twofold:
 (D A number of American firms are doing business through branches in Canada. Canada has no export regulations on ship ments to South America, so U. s. firms ship to Canada, then to South America. Thus our export restrictions intended to help Brit ain are being circumvented in British territory.
 (2) Latin American govern- ments are tending to adopt the same technique which we and they so severely criticized on the part of the Soviet government. They are pooling all purchases from the United States. Thus in stead of one company's ordering direct from New York, all com panies in a Latin American coun- try will order through a govern ment agency. This is done on the direct suggestion of the U. s. State Department so 1t will not have to pass upon the relative merits orfi' for instance, zinc to La Ma cion as against zinc to another great paper, La Presna.
 Nevertheless, this system, if car- ried on after the war. will set up "'Soviet" buying agencies whereby Latin American governments can pool purchases from Japan, Ger mayn, or whichever country gives them the cheapest price. instead of oldsfashioned purchases direct between firm and firm.
 Several South American c0un- tries also have been quietly con- sldeFign settingn up government import monopolies by means of which they could bar all U. S. goods unless the U. S. ssappIieti them with the requirements they wanted.
 NOTE - Cloce to ol70,O0O. GOO worth of defense and non-defense orders from Latin America have bean tied up on one ground og