result of negotiations he had carried on in the latter country. The Board, whose approval of the foreign debt transactions is required by law, assented to the arrangements on May 10, 1941, and the Minister of Finance thereupon signed contracts with the United States bank that has agreed to act as agent for the operations of conversion of the bonds and authentication of the new bonds, and with the two houses that acted in the same capacity in the 1927 and 1928 issues, respectively, and with which the government had reached an agreement for the service of amortization and interest of the bonds.

The Republic of Colombia will issue bonds dated October 1, 1940, to the amount of $50,000,000, at 3 percent interest per annum, to be amortized in 30 years. These bonds will be offered in exchange for the 1927 and 1928 bonds in circulation and for 50 percent of the corresponding accrued interest coupons, as follows:

Balance of the 1927 bonds in circu

lation..... Value of 50 percent of the accrued interest coupons of the 1927 bonds, July 1, 1935-July 1, 1939, inclusive....

$18, 273, 500

2,467, 000

Compulsory savings law in Paraguay

A recent presidential decree-law in Paraguay put into effect as of January 1, 1941, a system of compulsory savings for all men. and women, both nationals and foreigners, who are permanently employed in commercial, industrial, agricultural, stockraising, and private business enterprises of any kind.

The Agricultural Bank of Paraguay will have charge of the organization and administration of the new law. During a period of 20 years, five per cent of each employee's salary will be retained by the employer and deposited monthly to the credit of the employee in the Agricultural Bank's Savings Department. Such deposits will enjoy the Bank's current interest payments and at the end of the twenty-year period the employee may withdraw the total sum plus the accumulated interest.

Certain exemptions from the full 20-year savings period are provided; for example, when the employee reaches the age of 60, or when he remains incapacitated for work for more than a year, he may withdraw his entire savings, plus the interest. In case of the employee's death, his savings are to be paid to his legal heirs as stipulated in the decree-law.

After ten years of saving, an employee may borrow against his savings for the single purpose of house construction. The Agricultural Bank is given authority to regulate the form and conditions of such loans, but the law provides that the rate of interest on the loans shall not exceed six per cent per annum and that the amount of a loan must be proportional to the total that the employee can save in twenty years and must at all times be covered by the sum remaining to his credit in the Bank.

Excluded from the provisions of the law are directors, managers, trustees, professional men (lawyers, doctors, dentists, pharmacists, etc.), general laborers, farm laborers in agriculture and stock-raising, domestic servants, temporary, day and job workers, and all those employed in private firms and institutions which already have pension plans in accordance with national laws.

Paraguay previously had no old age or security plan for employees of the type covered by the new law. The Government, recognizing that a general lack of economic education prevailed among the people and recognizing it to be the duty of the modern state to insure the welfare of its citizens by helping them to provide against the hazards of life, has taken this means of stimulating saving habits throughout the republic, thereby assuring the benefits of such a practice to both the individual and the community as a whole.

Settlement of inter-American

trade complaints

ESTABLISHMENT of a clearing house for sifting inter American trade complaints which will then be forwarded to government and private dispute settlement agencies for swift adjustment has been formally announced by the Inter-American Commercial Arbitration Commission. The Commission, of which Thomas J. Watson, the president of the International Business Machines Corporation, is chairman, maintains hemisphere-wide facilities for settling commercial controversies between North and Latin American business men and has now extended its work through the newly created agency, which has an advisory board of government officials.

An Inter-American Business Relations Committee, made up of thirteen leading

importers, exporters, trade association executives and trade press publishers, has been formed to supervise the work of this "new trade link to smoother relations between the business men of the Americas."

The clearing house is designed to protect buyers and sellers in America and Latin America from trading practices that may be inimical to hemisphere solidarity, according to Kenneth H. Campbell, chairman of the Committee, and director of the Foreign Department of the National Association of Credit Men.

Other members of the committee include: P. G. Agnew, American Standards Association; P. M. Haight, International General Electric Co.; Harry H. Radcliffe, National Council of American Importers: J. E. Sitterley, J. E. Sitterley & Sons, Inc.: F. P. Cole, National Foreign Trade Council; Morris S. Rosenthal, Stein, Hall & Co., Inc.; John F. Budd, American Import and Export Bulletin; Herman G. Brock, Guaranty Trust Co.; Thomas W. Ashwell, Export Trade and Shipper; Oren O. Gallup. Export Managers Club of New York: Franklin Johnston, American Exporter; George E. Quisenberry, Business Publishers International Corporation; and Frances Kellor, American Arbitration Association.

In describing the work of the organization, Mr. Campbell said:

Our facilities are free and voluntary. Since the outbreak of war, with its negative effect on European export trade, a great number of American and Latin American business men have entered the inter-American market. Being new to the ways of trading in this new field, some of them have run into trade difficulties and misunderstandings. If these disagreements are allowed to go unsettled, they create ill-will and hamper governmental efforts at hemisphere solidarity. One reason why many disputes have gone unadjusted, is that business men generally have been unaware of the existence of the many competent agencies existing today which can settle and adjust such situations. Therefore, in an effort to centralize the disposition of complaints,

L

this new agency has been formed with a view to studying, analyzing, and handling such matters

t and to take such action as may be necessary to their solution.

Those commercial disagreements which can be arbitrated will be sent to the Inter-American Commercial Arbitration Commission, while others will be routed to those trade, business or government organizations best equipped to effect a speedy adjustment with the utmost goodwill.

The headquarters of the Inter-American Business Relations Committee will be in the offices of the American Arbitration Association at 1230 Sixth Avenue, New York. Joseph M. Marrone, former special trade commissioner of the Department of Commerce, has been appointed secretary of the Committee.

The 4-H Club movement in Cuba

and Venezuela

The 4-H Clubs speak Spanish in Puerto Rico, where 7,200 boys and girls are now enrolled. Club members there follow a program similar to that pursued by their fellows on the mainland-they grow patches of plaintain and bananas, care for their pigs or flocks of chickens, can, remodel their own rooms, and plan their wardrobes.

Some of the 4-H Club bulletins in New Mexico, where a large part of the population speaks Spanish, have been issued in that language also.

Ten years ago-by a Presidential decree of January 30, 1931-similar organizations were established in Cuba, where they are known as the 5-C Clubs. Instead of the four-leafed clover that is the emblem of the clubs in the United States, a fivepointed star is used, and the 5 C's, one for each point, correspond to the Spanish words Cuba, Cerebro (head) Corazón (heart) Cooperación (cooperation), and Civismo (civic spirit).

In 1938 the government of Venezuela

published a booklet giving the bases for the creation of 5-V Clubs in that country. Their insignia is one large V with a smaller one within it and three still smaller letters arranged in a triangle within that. The letters stand for Valor (courage), Vigor (vigor), Verdad (truth), Vergüenza (modesty), and Venezuela. An official of the Ministry of Agriculture went to Puerto Rico the following year to study the 4-H movement there, and one result of his visit was the six-months' loan of a member of the Puerto Rican Agricultural Extension staff to assist in organizing extension work in Venezuela. During that period 10 clubs, with a total membership of 150, were founded.

During January and February 1941 members of the Motion Picture Section of the Federal Extension Service of the United States went both to Puerto Rico, to take motion pictures of 4-H Club activities there, and to Cuba, where motion pictures were made of the last annual convention of the 5-C's held in Colón at the end of February. Both these pictures are available to Latin American countries interested in knowing what 4-H Clubs are doing under tropical conditions. The Spanish publications of Puerto Rico. and New Mexico, valuable aids in explaining the work of the organization, are also available.

Exhibit of club activities at

the Pan American Union

A special exhibit on display at the Pan American Union in August and September reflects the wide interest on the part of women's clubs in the United States in the study of Latin America. The exhibit portrays the work done by clubs which during the last two years have undertaken a study of the southern republics.

In cooperation with the Department of

International Relations of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, the Pan American Union in 1939 offered to study groups a course on the other American republics. Up to the end of the last club year nearly 2,500 clubs, scattered throughout the country, had taken the course.

At the suggestion of the then Chariman of the Department of International Relations, Mrs. Frederic Beggs, many of the clubs prepared scrapbooks, some of which contain material on the countries that were the subject of study, while others are compilations on the United States. The latter are intended for distribution in Latin America, and at the close of the exhibit will be forwarded to women's organizations and educational institutions in Latin America. They present different phases of life and conditions in the United States, and are intended as a contribution to inter-American understanding by making this country better known to the people of Latin America, just as the women's clubs of the United States, by undertaking a study of the other American republics, have endeavored to improve their knowledge and understanding of Latin America. Among the subjects treated in these scrapbooks are home life in the United. States, schools and colleges, flowers and gardens, the evolution of music, and the national parks and other scenic attractions. One of the most interesting collections is that compiled by the Evening Group of the Women's Club of Leonia, N. J., which illustrates three centuries of painting in the United States.

The Good Neighbor "Tour" is being continued by the Pan American Union, and already more than 400 additional clubs have registered for the course. The "tour" is planned and organized as though the members of study groups were on an actual visit to the republics of Latin America. Beginning at New York the

"visitors" proceed to Brazil and the other east coast countries of South America, cross the Andes to Chile and return by way of the west coast, through Central America and Mexico, and thence to the island republics of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The course of study is intended to be more than a travel outline; it is designed to give an intimate view of various aspects of life in the American Republics. This is achieved by including in each program a subject peculiar to the country under consideration or one to which that nation has made an important contribution, and treating it not only from the standpoint of that country but of the continent as a whole.

Documentary material covering the twenty programs into which the course is divided has been included in ten volumes I of mimeographed material prepared by the Pan American Union. Clubs registering for the "tour" also receive the monthly BULLETIN of the Pan American Union for a full year. The registration fee is $2.00.

Advisory committees on inter-
American affairs

The State Department of the United States has announced the appointment of four committees, which will aid it in its work of promoting inter-American cultural exchange.

The Advisory Committee on Exchange Fellowships and Professorships will advise on the selection of graduate students and professors for the panels presented to other participating governments and from the panels presented by other participating governments, under the Convention for the Promotion of Inter-American Cultural Relations (see BULLETIN for December 1939), as well as advising on matters relating to the interchange of students and professors. The committee consists of Stephen P.

Duggan, Director of the Institute of International Education, chairman; Albert L. Barrows, Executive Secretary of the National Research Council; Charles G. Fenwick, Professor of Political Science, Bryn Mawr College; Waldo G. Leland, Director of the American Council of Learned Societies; Arthur P. Whitaker, Professor of Latin American History, University of Pennsylvania; and Donald Young, Research Secretary of the Social Science Research Council.

The Advisory Committee on the Adjustment of Foreign Students in the United States will advise the Department of State on problems involving the adjustment of students from abroad to their new environment and on plans for more effective guidance and hospitality. Its members are: Edgar J. Fisher, Assistant Director of the Institute of International Education, chairman; Rollin S. Atwood, Acting Director, Institute of Inter-American Affairs, University of Florida; Gladys Bryson, Smith College; Ben M. Cherrington, Professor of International Relations, University of Denver; Charles W. Hackett, Professor of Latin American History, University of Texas; Charles B. Lipman, Dean of the Graduate Division, University of California; Martin McGuire, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Catholic University of America; John L. Mott, Direc!tor of International House, New York; and J. Raleigh Nelson, Director of the International Center, University of Michigan.

The Advisory Committee on interAmerican Cooperation in Agricultural Education will not only advise the Department of State regarding agricultural education, but also stimulate the interest of the land-grant colleges of the United States in inter-American studies and students, and explain the aims of the proposed Institute of Tropical Agriculture. The chairman of the committee is Knowles

A. Ryerson, Dean of the College of Agriculture, University of California, and the members are Earl N. Bressman, Office of Foreign Agriculture Relations, Department of Agriculture, executive secretary; Thomas Barbour, Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; Homer J. Henney, Dean of Agriculture, Colorado State College; H. Harold Hume, Dean, College of Agriculture, University of Florida; Fred J. Kelley, Chief, Division of Higher Education, Office of Education, Federal Security Agency; and J. G. Lee, Jr., Dean of the College of Agriculture, Louisiana State University.

To advise the Department of State, through its Division of Cultural Relations, on general policy in the planning and execution of the program of cultural relations, a General Advisory Committee has also been appointed. It will serve as a coordinating body for the other advisory committees. The members of the General Advisory Committee are: Robert G. Caldwell, Dean of Humanities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ben M. Cherrington; Stephen P. Duggan; Waldo G. Leland; Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress; Carl H. Milam, Secretary of the American Library Association; Beardsley Ruml, Dean of the Department of Social Sciences, University of Chicago; James T. Shotwell, Chairman of the National Committee of the United States on International Intellectual Cooperation; George N. Shuster, President of Hunter College; John W. Studebaker, Commissioner of Education, Federal Security Agency; and Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of the United States.

Inter-American Cooperation in
Indian Affairs

A Division of Inter-American Cooperation has been created in the Office of Indian