Foreign News: Solidarity

A telephone call from the Brazilian Foreign Office at Rio de Janeiro to Lima, Peru, 2,400 miles away, unofficially but effectually wound up the Eighth Pan-American Conference one afternoon last week. The Brazilian delegation at Lima was told it could string along with the 20 other American nations in ratifying the "solidarity" declaration over which the conference had higgled for a fortnight. It was the most noteworthy achievement of the meeting and it did a little more than any agent or agency since Nature to bring the Western Hemisphere together.

The Declaration of Lima, a sort of interlocking Monroe Doctrine for all American nations, declares that the American States "reaffirm their continental solidarity and their purpose to collaborate in the maintenance of the principles upon which solidarity is based"; that they "reaffirm their decision to maintain and defend them against all foreign intervention"; that whenever a crisis arises any American country can call for a meeting of all the other signers.

Originally brought to the conference by

U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, it was intended to be an unmistakable warning aimed squarely at the totalitarian States of Europe. Chief critic of the original version was Argentina. Always a strong advocate of solidarity, Argentina, dependent upon German and Italian purchases for a sizable amount of her trade, objected to such an outspoken attack on her totalitarian customers. Mr. Hull, unwilling to compromise President Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy by insisting that the U. S. have its way, allowed Argentina to substitute a pact which specified no particular kind of "foreign intervention." Then Brazil, traditional South American rival of Argentina, balked at accepting the leadership of her southern neighbor. Finally, a second, slightly rephrased Argentine draft was accepted.

Two weeks of squabbling stripped the Declaration of much of its psychological force to the dictator countries of Europe and even in the Americas. Nazi news-sheets dubbed the Conference "U. S. Failure No. 1." Many Latin American delegations were disappointed that Mr. Hull failed to assume stronger leadership. But the Declaration went further than the 1936 solidarity pact of Buenos Aires in providing for mutual consultation in a crisis.

Buried under the squabble over the Declaration were several Conference decisions which may have a more immediate effect on totalitarian methods than the Declaration itself. The Conference, in 13 working days before it formally adjourned this week, approved no projects, rejected dozens, tabled others until the next conference in 1943. Among those approved were:

> A non-binding resolution deploring trade quotas and exchange control (such as practiced by Germany), pledging the nations to do everything possible to lower tariffs.