Correspondence
A LETTER FROM PARAGUAY. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,--Paraguay, a land that has suffered from the neglect common to those who live within the shadow of great and powerful neighbours, is slowly coming into her own. For year she has met with complete indifference in the outside world. It is invariably the Argentine, Chile, and Brazil, with Uruguay and Peru, who are thought of as the South American continent ; only as an afterthought is Paraguay included.
The neglect is not merited ; her area alone should be a claim to recognition. It is a country about half the size of Germany, and three times that of Holland and Belgium together ; but this has no weight against the dominating position of the surrounding republics.
To-day, capital—particularly Argentine capital—is rapidly being used in Paraguay, to such • an extent, indeed, that a special trade treaty between the two countries is in project to safeguard the interests, which it is known run into several million pesos gold, by which the enormous potentialities of the Republic will be exploited.
Paraguay is a poor country rich in resources. Without the introduction of capital on a large scale to develop the land, the timber forests, the " yerba ". plantations, and orange groves, her wealth is lost to the world. From her own financial resources she has little or nothing to contribute to this end Lack of transport and communications have for year been one of the foremost drawbacks in Paraguayan agricultural development. Means of distribution are so restricted that some regions are almost cut off from other areas, with the inevitable result that where there is perhaps a scarcity of a particular commodity in one part, there is a superabundance in another. To know that great riches lie dormant in a land, when means of transport are lacking to carry them to a market where they can be appreciated, is little consolation—and that position is Paraguay's to-day.
Much may come of the recent interview between the President of the Republic and a well-known and important Argentine industrialist, more especially if the present domestic peace, so long denied to Paraguay,. is maintained. The past has shown only too sadly how fatal to her best interests are wars without, and dissensions within, her borders. Other nations can cope with civil and military disturbances without necessarily ruining all their foreign and domestic trade. With Paraguay disturbances of any magnitude affect the whole commercial fabric.—I am, Sir, &c., YOUR PARAGUAY CORRESPONDENT.
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