URUGUAY: Terra Torpedo

In record time last week one of the most important treaties ever to be signed by one of the 21 American States was torpedoed by one of the smaller men in one of the smaller major American States. Hardly was the ink dry on the Pan-American Conference's unanimous resolution to eschew barter-trade deals with the European dictator nations, when small but rich Uruguay O. K.d a deal with Italy which, swapping wool for armaments, is expected to treble trade between the countries.

Nub of the situation was that stocky Dr. Gabriel Terra was not among the delegates to the Lima conference. Uruguay's welterweight strongman, who ran the country personally for seven years before turning it over to be technically run by his brother-in-law six months ago, was at home in Montevideo, touting the wonders of the Italian Government, whose guest he had just been. When the Uruguayan stooges at Lima got through renouncing the principle of trading with the dictatorships, Dr. Terra's Fascist friends cheerfully sprang the trade agreement they had been making for months in Rome.