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Only Latin American country to be represented at the congress was Chile. Her Ambassador to the U. S., Don Carlos Davila, gloomed that imports by Chile of U. S. automobiles were off 90% at the beginning of 1931; hinted that all Latin America is tightening its belt, doing without luxuries; explained that due to Depression the total sum which Latin America received last year for all her exports was 33% less than in 1929.
Showdown Sessions. Members of the International Chamber point with most pride to its General Resolution of 1923 and claim with some justice that it gave an impetus which eventually produced the Dawes Plan. Last week in a secret showdown the night before the Conference adjourned Mr. Strawn and others of the steering committee managed to agree on a General Resolution for 1931 which was quietly adopted next day, embracing three major resolutions:
1) A bow to President Hoover: ". . . The International Chamber commends the efforts being made by the governments of the world to reduce armaments to the lowest possible limit and urges that [this effort] should be redoubled. . . ."
2) A backward and forward bow, to both the U. S. and Europe: "International obligations have been made definite in amount and in terms as between nations. The integrity of such obligations is always fundamental to the maintenance of international credit and to the expansion of commerce and industry. The observance of this essential principle, however, is not inconsistent with an impartial examination of the effects of these obligations on international trade, if warranted by changed economic conditions. . . ."
3) A bow presenting the congress' rear to tariffs: "National and international trade should be encouraged by the removal of every obstacle possible. Tariffs should not discriminate unfairly between nations. . . ."
Mighty Mendelssohn. The House of Rothschild is not so great in Germany today as the House of Mendelssohn. Bankers to the House of Romanov up to 1914, Mendelssohn & Co. suffered temporary eclipse when Germany declared war on Russia, later emerged more potent than before. Sixty-five years old, tall, clean-shaven and of impressive mien, Franz von Mendelssohn did not go to Washington last week. He addressed the congress, whose president he will be next year, from Berlin. "My voice," said Mighty Mendelssohn, "as that of a single individual coming across the ocean, is weak and feeble. But I remind you that other voices are making the same appeal . . . the voices of . . . the 20,000,000 unemployed in the world.
"The well-being of the creditor is endangered when the debtor is crushed under his burden. . . . The seller needs the purchasing power of the buyer. There is no method by which economic wellbeing can be permanently isolated in one country. . . .
"Business is in extraordinary straits, such as it has hardly ever been in before. But equally extraordinary are the possibilities given to the leaders of business to release it from these straits, to convert scientific progress into progress in wellbeing, and to convert the riches of the earth which this progress has rendered available but which, owing to the present overproduction, seem almost to be a curse, into real riches and blessings for mankind."*