National Affairs: Barlow Suspicious

When U. S. Ambassador Harry Frank Guggenheim arrived in Cuba, one of the crankiest, most vexatious problems he found waiting settlement was a $9,000,000 real estate claim of U. S. citizen Joseph E. Barlow, long-time Havana resident and land promoter (TIME, April 29 et seq.). For ten years Mr. Barlow, at times irascible, had been pressing the U. S. Government for justice from Cubans he claimed had stolen his property. Last week Ambassador Guggenheim thought he had found a method of settlement. Citizen Barlow balked at the arrangement.

Citizen Barlow claims that in 1919 he bought swamp acres in what is now the business centre of Havana, developed them with streets, sewers, watermains; that one Pedro Gomez Mena. in connivance with then President Zayas of Cuba, seized the land, formed Gomez Mena Land Co.; that Cuban courts had upheld the Barlow titles; that officers of the land company as Cuban Congressmen were immune to arrest and prosecution; that therefore the court orders against them could not be executed.

Ambassador Guggenheim had induced Gomez Mena Land Co. to arbitrate with Citizen Barlow. Citizen Barlow was to choose one Cuban arbitrator. The land company was to choose another from a group of three to be selected by John William Davis, onetime U. S. Ambassador to Great Britain. A third was to be selected by the other two or by the World Court if they failed to agree.

Cranky, suspicious, Citizen Barlow objected. He insisted that each of the proposed Cuban arbiters "is a close friend of President Machado and his cronies;" that Mr. Davis was a schoolmate of Rafael Sanchez Aballi, son-in-law of President Machado, leaser of an amusement park in "Barlow" properties; that U. S. justice was not to be expected from any third arbiter of Spanish extraction selected by the World Court.