Latin American Report
Friday, July 22, 1960 Summer Session Kansam
Page 5
Frondizi Warns Europe Not to Cut Imports
BUENOS AIRES —(UPI)— Since President Arturo Frondizi seldom does things on the spur of the moment, there was nothing impulsive about the plain talk to which he recently treated the capitals of Europe.
His speeches were written in Buenos Aires before he left on his European tour.
Frondizi went to Europe to judge at first hand the impact of the six nation Common Market on Argentina's farm exports.
To the Common Market nations of France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg, he delivered this blunt message:
Either support Argentina and the other Latin American nations economically or risk the loss of their support politically; and, any move to shut out Argentina's meat, wheat, grains, wool, fruit, hides and other products will mean that Argentina not only will not buy their machinery but probably will not be able to do so.
On the political front, it could mean that Argentina would lean toward the growing Afro-Asian bloc which threatens soon to control the United Nations by sheer strength of numbers.
It also could mean that in such sensitive pocketbook areas as Fidel
Castro's seizure of the British Shell Oil refinery in Cuba, Argentina would stay on the sidelines, merely watching.
On the economic front, the Belgians at least, were quick to reassure Argentina that the last thing the Brussels government wanted was to lose its export market in Argentina.
On the other side of the coin, Argentina, blessed as she is with 100 feet of topsoil in the Pampas and an excellent climate, still has a long way to go toward scientific farming. The British who eat most of Argentina's exported chilled beef, still manage to raise one-third of their needs in their tight little island. The British know how to get much more meat per animal.
This situation largely is the inheritance of the pie-in-the-sky preachings to the peasants in the Peron decade; the lack of mechanization and the exodus of the farm laborer to the new industries in the cities.
In Hamburg, the president had to listen to complaints from wheat importers that the quality of Argentina wheat had gone down through the years due to the ravages of fungus and insect pests. Finally, shippers complained that the chaotic situation in Argentine loading ports caused their vessels to lose valuable time.
Since Peron, succeeding governments have made heroic efforts to remedy this state of affairs but Argentina still has a long way to go. An urgent need is that production costs be lowered.
A year ago, the cost of living was rising 10 per cent per month. Today, it is rising at the rate of barely one per cent per month. Most prices seem to have stabilized although a few still are creeping upwards. Goods in the non-essential categories are showing a tendency to come down.
One change being considered is installation of a quota system on telephone calls on the U.S. plan which gives subscribers the right to make a certain number of calls but requires extra payment for all calls over the quota.
Argentina apparently is ready to make some drastic changes in its telephone system.
Another plan calls for the introduction of the party line. In most Latin American countries, the heritage of Spanish individualism flares high and the idea of a subscriber sharing his line with someone else is like having an odd man in a family bathroom. However, Chile has four families on party lines while Argentina proposed to start with two. If you want your own phone
that will be all right, of course, except that the bill will be exactly double.
Argentina now has 450,000 unfilled applications for telephones. Some applicants have waited as long as seven years.
Television fever: For seven years, Argentina had only one television station. It was Radio Belgrano-TV, which started with a brand new 20 K.W. U.S.-built transmitter and still has the best mobile equipment. Over the years, it trained hundreds of announcers, actors, ad-men, cameramen and technicians. Last month, the new Cadete station started and almost every person on the station
pair tribute to Belgrano as their alma mater.
Sometime this month, other interests are starting a third channel station, and on Aug. 1, Goar Mestre, exiled king of television in Havana, Cuba, hopes to go on the air with his 124 K.W. station from the roof of the 42-story Atlas Building.
Some 10 channels have been allotted to interior cities, and Cordoba already is transmitting. Mar Del Plata will be ready this month and Rosario next month.
Badgers live on plains and deserts but when in the water they can swim as far as half a mile from shore.
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