Latin American Notes

If, as past events indicate, the U. S. is to dominate Central and South American air commerce, the following incidents of last week are pertinent:

Pan American Airways completed the first year of its service from Miami, through Central American countries, to the Canal Zone. As everyone knows, its lines run thence down the West coast of South America to Santiago, and thence across the Andes to Buenos Aires. Another branch circles the entire Caribbean Sea. A main line wends from Miami to Trinidad down the South American East coast to Paramaribo (TIME, July 22).

NYRBA v. Aeropostale. New York, Rio & Buenos Aires Line, of which William Patterson MacCracken is the new board chairman, is developing air stations from Tampa, through the West Indies and down the East coast of South America. Among the West Indies it needs port facilities on the French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique; and in South America, in French Guiana. Due to the urgency of Compagnie Generale Aeropostale, a French government-subsidized line running from Buenos Aires to Natal, Brazil, the French government has forbidden NYRBA landing at or flying over French possessions, unless NYRBA carries mail for Aeropostale and gives the latter access to its airports. The U. S. State Department last week was chaffering with the French government on this matter. Watching the situation was not only NYRBA and Aeropostale, but also the German Condor Line which also parallels much of the Aeropostale route, and Pan American Airways which intends to parallel NYRBA all the way to Buenos Aires--unless the Aviation Corp. of the Americas, which owns Pan American, buys control of NYRBA and so ends U. S. competition in the region. Another watcher of the fray is a little known U. S. concern, Paris American Airways, which competes with Pan American from Porto Rico to Trinidad, crossing en route Guadeloupe and Martinique. Another observer is the Colonial government of the Bahamas. Governor Charles William James Orr from his hill-cresting House at Nassau sees with no equanimity Pan American planes carrying mail, passengers and express between Nassau and Miami, and from Miami dominating the whole Caribbean. He wishes for a British air service to link the Central British possessions of the Americas.

Graf Zeppelin to Rio. Of all the ocean-skimming trips predicted for 'ihe Graf Zeppelin this year, the one from Friedrichshafen to Rio de Janeiro this spring seemed most certain last week. Dr. Hugo Eckener last autumn indicated that such a trip would be across Spain, West Africa and the South Atlantic. But there is money in jaunting rich Americans to the U. S. So last week the route was promised as Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst, to Rio--if the U. S. navy would grant permission to use its dirigible hangar at Lakehurst.

Flying Clinic. Latin Americans have a helpless detestation and envy of U. S. dominance of their aviation. On the other hand they have full trust and frank good-will for U. S. medicine. The conflicting emotions griped many a Latin American solar plexus last week, as two plane loads of U. S. physicians and surgeons hopped, skipped and jumped through eleven countries, holding hasty clinics at pauses. On the whole, local practitioners who could not attend the Pan-American medical congress meeting at Panama City, R. P., were grateful for this U. S. aerial intrusion.*

*Next meeting of the Pan-American Medical Association will be at Lima, Peru, beginning Jan. 31, 1931. President is C. Paz-Soldan of Peru, president at large Maria Fernandez of Cuba.

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