INTERNATIONAL: INTERNATIONAL Looking Forward

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"The American ideal of peace," cried President Terra, "must not be buried in the swamps of the Chaco." Demanding "solution of the great economic problems" he continued: "We all know the principal one and we must not hide it, because to do so would be cowardly and senseless! It is the policy of isolation by means of tariff barriers. . . . Having been a professor of economics myself, I recognize in President Roosevelt a master of this science. His book, Looking Forward, shows with great vision the appalling consequences of the Hawley-Smoot tariff.

"The Hawley-Smoot tariff has almost completely closed United States markets to our industrial and agricultural products and for three years has made it impossible for us to pay our public and private debts. It has increased our taxation necessary to meet the costs of government and, finally, has closed our factories.

"That statesman, President Roosevelt, who shows that he understands perfectly the causes of the trouble, believes that the reaction must be immediate, that the tariffs of all American countries must be lowered and that it is time to open the doors of trade which have been closed by this Chinese wall."

Since Secretary of State Hull still believes in cutting tariffs, he nodded vigorously at President Terra's words, then appeared to recollect how greatly Mr. Roosevelt's tariff views have changed since he wrote Looking Forward last winter. With the U. S.'s new Recovery and Reconstruction program predicated on maintaining the U. S. tariff wall, old style Anti-Tariff Democrat Hull has plenty to worry about. According to one Montevideo correspondent this week, Secretary Hull "often wears the preoccupied look of one absorbed in his own thoughts."

Prospects at the Conference were for: 1) acceptance of President Roosevelt's indicated offer to ask Congress for $500,000 to be spent in surveying the route for a Pan-American highway 10,000 miles long from New York to Buenos Aires: 2) wrangling over Caribbean proposals to reinterpret the Monroe Doctrine and the Platt Amendment in such fashion as to bar U. S. intervention in Latin-American affairs; 3) adoption of some sort of Conference resolution bidding Paraguay and Bolivia stop fighting; 4) impetus to numerous scholarly undertakings in the realm of codifying South American international law and examining the degree of preparedness of South American women to vote in general elections.