Square Deal Wanted

The Communists and agrarian reformers who run Guatemala's government grabbed 233,973 acres of the United Fruit Co.'s best banana reserve lands at Tiquisate last year, and blandly offered the company $594,572 in 25-year government bonds as payment. The company, which values the land at $15,854,849, cried "confiscation," and asked the U.S. Government for help.

Last week, after sending two protests to the Guatemalans without getting so much as an acknowledgment, the U.S. formally billed Guatemala for United Fruit's full claim. It was the biggest claim presented to any foreign government on behalf of a private U.S. firm since the Mexican oil expropriation of 1938. Following the principle established then by Secretary of State Cordell Hull, the U.S. insisted that, though sovereign governments have the right to expropriate property, the compensation paid must be "adequate, effective and prompt." As in the Mexican case, the U.S. might accept some smaller compromise sum as "adequate." But now, as then, it had served notice that it was acting for U.S. citizens and that the matter had become one for the two governments to handle, with some kind of negotiation or arbitration for a square deal.

Guatemala's anti-Yanqui bosses muscled in on another old-line U.S. company last week. The firm was W. R. Grace & Co., which for 25 years had managed the lightering and warehouse operations at the Pacific port of San Jose through a local affiliate in which Grace held a 64% stock interest. After refusing to renew the port company's permit, the government "intervened" in its affairs but ordered Grace officials to run the port until a new management could be found. Guatemalans heard that the owners would be forced to part with enough stock shares to give the government legal control.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.