ARGENTINA: Knifing a Neighbor

Embargo, like Tariff, is a game at which any number of nations can play. In Washington, Chairman Legge of the Federal Farm Board is calling for "a temporary embargo on wheat imports" (TIME, Jan. 5). Last week Argentina got into the game. Her new Provisional Government, headed by swart, hard-eyed, big-mustachioed General Uriburu, suddenly declared an absolute embargo on "Paraguay tea."

For little Paraguay the blow was staggering. She has exported her "tea" (yerba mate) almost exclusively to Argentina. Other nations do not like it. Last year a campaign to launch Paraguay tea in New York as "a new drink with a.new kick" petered out. The brew is not alcoholic. Aghast last week, Paraguayan statesmen realized that whereas Paraguay has been accustomed to drink two-thirds of her tea she may now have to drink it all.

Hard-boiled Argentine reason for the embargo: an "infant industry" producing Paraguay tea in Argentina has been started in the past few years, gives employment to some 50.000 Argentine laborers. Amid present "depressed conditions" the native and foreign yerba mate industries cannot both flourish. It seems best to knife the adult neighbor to save one's own child.

So may the U. S. attempt to knife Canada in her wheat pit, so may Canada knife back at the U. S. with an embargo on manufactured products. Already Australia has clapped embargoes on a list of nearly 100 imports (TIME, July 21).