Latin America: British Interests

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Almost anyone else would have chosen another time to call on the president of the Bank of Guatemala. Guatemala had that very day threatened to break relations with Britain, which had declined to cede tiny, neighboring, contested British Honduras.

Peter W. R. Mitchell, a smart British banknote salesman, coolly turned the misunderstanding to his own account. He offered to print a colorful series of Guatemalan currency featuring a map of British Honduras. Gasped Banker Manuel Noriego Morales, "Will your Government permit you to print it?" "We are a free country," replied Mitchell smoothly, "and my company is not interested in politics."

Elsewhere, British engravings were not in vogue. Argentina refused to honor British mail carrying a new twopenny stamp featuring the disputed (but British-administered) Falkland Islands. Chile likewise objected because the stamp showed as British a portion of the Polar icecap she covets.