Monday, 2 October

Dull, light rain

I studied Russian from 11.30 in the morning to 1.30 in the afternoon.

The British army has occupied Kythira and the other two small islands in the extreme South of Greece. Britain will never let go of Greece.

I received a news telegram from the Foreign Ministry. It said the Dagongbao editorial claimed that regarding the failure of the Chinese war those who advocated “European priority” should take partial responsibility. Also until the fourth year of the Chinese war, the friend of China, the United States, still sold coal, oil to Japan, the country invading China. I thought it was pointless for us to recount the old debts with our Allies. Dagongbao is long well-known for its outstanding editorials but now it has made such a childish one, and the Foreign Ministry also sent it out via telegram. I am simply very puzzled by this.

Recently because the Norwegian Ambassador understood the South American situation very well I frequently talked to him regarding this and it aroused my interest in South America. Also recently American-Argentinian relations have been tense, so I borrowed books about Argentina from the Norwegian Ambassador, and in the past few days have studied Argentina’s situation. My thoughts are as follows: 1) Argentina was discovered by the Spanish Juan Diaz de Solis in 1516 and was a Spanish colony. In 1810 they resisted the Spanish and in 1816 they established a republic. But it did not become stabilised until 1853. The population, according to the 1935 census, is roughly about 12 million, most of them European, Spanish and Italian in particular. The country’s religion is Catholicism, and its constitution regulates that the President must be a Catholic. Their armaments are not plentiful, but they adopted conscription. People between 25 to 45 years old have to join the forces and they have a regular army of 300,000 people. The land is very fertile and the weather very good.

2) In the last hundred years, Argentina’s politics, economy and society have been dominated by the landowners, and they formed only a minority. For instance, the richest place was the capital Buenos Aires, in 1942, 272 people owned one sixth of the whole province’s land. In Patagonia province the two land developers even owned more than 16,500,000 acres. In terms of dimensions this was equivalent to Switzerland and Belgium combined. In total the lands owned by 1,804 people were larger than Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark combined. Their products could feed 60 million people, therefore the power these big landowners held was extremely strong, and they formed part of the forces maintaining feudal customs.

3) In the past few decades European immigrants have been on the increase, and in the city particularly. Therefore the power of the middle class greatly increased, thus unifying to form the Radical Party. This was to resist the big landowners’ Conservative Party, and strived for the amendment of the electoral law. That law was amended in 1912. In 1916, when the election was held, according to the new election law, the Radical Party for the first time won the position of President.

4) With regard to its land development and national industrial development, the main capital came from British loans (more than 60% of the foreign capital.) Its social industries such as railways, trams, lighting, canned peasant products, food preservation businesses as well as the Argentinan national debt were all made possible by British capital because Britain needed Argentinian agricultural products, and Argentina needed British industrial products and capital, therefore the economic relations between the two countries were very close. Certainly the United States needed many Argentinian products, but it did not need its agricultural products, therefore the economic relations between the United States and Argentina were in many ways conflicting, and because of these conflicts there were also political and diplomatic problems.

In terms of profits from the various countries’ British capital got the least, and the return was less than 4 percent on average. Recently it was reduced to between 1.5% and 2%. It was because the British merchants were conservative. They did not put in capital to reform. For instance trains and trams were obsolete to the extent that they could not be used. But what the United States invested was new businesses so they were more lucrative. For example General Motors got 92.7% profit, First National Bank of Boston 53%, National City Bank of New York 59.5% and United Shoe Machinery Co. 25.5% in 1940.

6) From 1914 to 1929, the price of land soared and the landowners’ wealth burgeoned. Their extravagances were at their peak. They mortgaged their land for loans. During the depression from 1930 to 1934, many landowners were in economic difficulty, and their power fell sharply. During this period, Britain forced Argentina to sign all kinds of agreements, therefore the economic relations of Britain and Argentina became close. (Argentina’s agricultural products depended on Britain to sell.)

Since 19l6 political power has been in the hands of the Radical Party. But in 1930, the President, Yrigoyen, was too old and weak, so the Conservative Party was able to grasp power through the Militarist General José F.Uriburu. However, the people did not oppose this because 1) the President was over 80 years old and was too old. He was not able to manage political affairs. 2) The government was openly corrupt, and bribery commonplace. 3) The commercial treaties between Britain and Argentina were too disadvantageous to Argentina. 4) He opposed foreign capital, and regarded it as economic aggression. When the Conservative Party ascended to power up until 1938, President Ortiz tried hard to reform, but unfortunately, he lost the sight of both eyes and could not carry out his duties. His position was taken over by the Vice-President Castillo but he was a most anti-reactionary person. He represented the interests of the big landowners, therefore on 4 June 1943 his Minister General Pedro Pablo Ramírez used the army to expel him. The people in the country felt very happy about this. At that time the army was divided into two cliques. The majority of them advocated resuming democracy, but there was a minority called the “Colonels’ Clique” which was extremely anti-reactionary. But it turned out that the latter won. Probably this clique advocated a) anti-freedom b) anti-capitalism c) anti-foreign.

8) At the beginning of the war, Britain did not want Argentina to join against Germany because Britain feared Argentina would join the United States group and be controlled by the Americans, then British interest in Argentina would not be maintained. Therefore at the time, though the Argentinian Government did not cut off relations with Germany and Italy, it was very sympathetic to Britain and the Allied countries. But after the coup d’état in 1943, its political leader was extremely anti-foreign, so he also repelled Britain.

9) Argentina was extremely opposed to the United States’ imperialistic manner as in terms of geography and economy it could be so.

10) Argentina and Brazil fought for leadership in South America. Though Brazil was bigger and had more population, its lands were not as fertile as those of Argentina. Also its educational level and living standards were not as high as Argentina’s.

11) Argentina has aggressive intentions towards its neighbours. Fortunately it did not have many soldiers and so it can do nothing.

12) Recently and especially after the European war, Argentinian industry was quite prosperous. Its leaders intended to develop its industry so as to allow it to become self sufficient, and shift its focus away from farming a little bit. During wartime as there was no competition it was certainly easy. But when the war ended industries in other countries revived. In terms of commercial competition Argentina was lacking in resources. If there was free trade it certainly could not compete with other countries. Therefore, if Argentina wants to keep this kind of industry afloat, it needs to increase its import duty, but in that case it will be unable to sell its agricultural products therefore Argentina must decide on her post-war economic policy. This is closely related to its internal politics and diplomacy.

From what I have seen as stated above, that Argentina was dubbed anti-democratic and pro-Allies is all pretext. The biggest struggle is still the economic struggle between Britain, the United States and Argentina.