The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-01-16
Malaga and Africa come back to

.----
Malaga and Africa come back to
their own.
AMERICAS TROPICAL EMPIRE
AS long ago as 1885, four years
before war started in Europe and
seven years before we began to
worry about tin and rubber,
Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha,
then Brazilian ambassador in the
United States, urged, begged and
cajoled our State and Commerce
Departments to buy more tropical
products from South America, in
stead of Malaga, the Dutch East
indies and Africa.
I'VE should trade by hemi-
Spheres" Aranha argued. "Eu-
rope has her colonies in Africa
and Asia from which she gets
coffee, rubber, tin and all sorts
of tropical products. And Eu-
rope will always favor her own
colonies.
I'm South America we pro-
duce exactly the same things.
Yet you buy from Europc's col
0nies in Asia and Africa in
stead of buying from us. Fur
thermOre, you have to haul IT
half way round the world. 1t is
expensive, and in time Of war
you might not be able to get it
at ALL"
There are lot of people IN high
places in Washington today who
wish they had taken Aranhma's
advice and begun, seven years ago,
to build up our rubber and tin
supplies In South American in
stead of the South Pacific.
However, when Aranha, by that
time Brazilian Foreign Minister,
came to Washington in 1888 and
urged that we send agricultural
experts to Brazil to advise re-
garding increased rubber plant
ing, the U. S. Agriculture Depart
ment actually baked at spending
the necessary $4,000 and wanted
this amount paid by the State
Department.
Now that the war is on, the
great bulk of Latin Americans
are just as anxious over Singa-
pore and the Dutch East Indies
as we are. They see their fall
as a great victory for Japan and a
great blow to democracy. How
ever, many atin-Americans can
not understand why we insisted on
getting our tin and rubber from
across the Pacific, especially when
the Dutch and British formed an
international cartel TO hold up
the price against us, and when we
could have cultivated the Good
Neighbor policy by getting tin and
rubber much closer to home.
BRITISH RUBBER MONOPOLY
Some Latin Americans are even
frank enough to suggest that we
might have saved ourselves some
costly fighting on the far side of
the Pacific. But particularly they
are interested in whether we are
going back to Dutch and British
tin and rubber as SOON as this war
is over.
In this connection it Is interest,"
ing to read over the stormy diplo-
matte notes which the late Frank
B. Kellogg. Secretary of States un-
der Coolidge, sent to the British
government protesting against
their Malayan rubber cartel. That
was in 1925, but Secretary Kel-
logg sounded very much like
Thurman Arnold, the trust-bust-
ing assistant attorney general in
1912.
1.-THE government Of the
United States Is opposed to gov
eminent monopoles Of the prod
ucts in any country" Kellogg
cabled Alanson b. HOught0n, U.
S. ambassador in London, in the
summer Of 1925. He also point
ed out that the British Dutch
rubber monopoly had tripled
the price of rubber since Jan.
l and that this was terrific
gouge of the United States,
which consumed 20 per cent Of
all the wOIi Ids rubber.
Ambassador HoughtoR report
ed that he had gone 70 spend
weekend with Lord Salisbury
and discussed the matter with