1941: Colombia

The Congressional elections of March 16, in which 80 per cent of the electorate voted, have significance for the choice of president in 1942 since presidential candidates are selected by party conventions composed largely of Congressmen. Official figures gave the Conservatives 60 seats in the lower house, the Lopistas 42 and the anti-Lopistas 39, with the Conservatives holding the balance between the two Liberal factions, which are irreconcilably split over the candidacy of ex-President Alfonso López. At the Liberal party convention in August López, who represents the Leftist wing, secured 62 out of 120 votes and was declared the Liberal candidate. The anti-Lopistas, then, withdrew from the convention. The Conservatives will run no candidate but will back any anti-Lopista candidate. The secession of the entire Conservative minority from the Senate, together with the thirteen anti-Lopista Senators, in September, indicates the current political alignment. López is popular with organized labor and the masses but is distrusted by the business interests. His declarations on foreign policy have been conflicting but, in general, support the pro-American position of President Eduardo Santos, which the Liberal party convention has officially ratified. The Conservative leader, Laureano Gómez, strongly Catholic and pro-Franco, has been distinctly anti-United States.

Until war actually came to the Western Hemisphere, political capital was made of questions of foreign policy. Following the entry of the United States into the War, however, Colombia severed diplomatic relations with the Axis powers and publicly stated its complete solidarity with the northern republic. Concern for defense of the Panama Canal, which earlier in the year President Santos declared 'vital to all the Americas,' led to a government investigation of properties owned by German nationals, following President Roosevelt's public statement, Sept. 11, that in Colombia there were secret landing fields within easy striking distance of the Canal.

The United States' blacklisting, in July, of firms and persons in Latin America believed to be acting in the interests of the Axis provided material throughout the Latin American world for violent anti-Yankee propaganda. In Colombia it led to the appointment of a Senate Committee to study its effects on the Republic's economy. One of the Committee's members, José de la Vega, who is associated with Laureano Gómez in editing the anti-United States journal, El Siglo, attacked the blacklist in the Senate as an assault on neutral rights. Of the 250 blacklisted firms operating in Colombia, only 25 were owned by Colombians. Of these nine had already been eliminated as a result of negotiations with the United States authorities. The full record of Axis agents and sympathizers in Colombia, compiled by the United States' Ambassador, Spruille Braden, and his removal of German employees as distributing agents for North American firms, made the blacklist less necessary for this Republic.

On Oct. 10 President Santos signed a bill authorizing a $12,000,000 loan from the Export-Import Bank, to be used for hydroelectric plants, roads and irrigation projects. Arrangements were virtually completed during the year for the refunding of the direct dollar obligations of the Colombian Government, outstanding to the amount of $44,000,000. A decline in customs revenues and other taxes caused the ordinary fiscal operations to result in a cash deficit, estimated at about P. 8,000,000. The 1941 budget balanced revenues and expenditures at P. 76,734,000.

The restriction of Colombia's foreign trade in 1941 almost exclusively to the Western Hemisphere increased the Republic's economic dependence on the United States which, for the first four months of 1941, accounted for 76 per cent of the total. The problem of priorities created difficulties in securing the necessary raw material for Colombia's manufactures. The trade outlook, on the whole, was favorable, however, due chiefly to the rise in the price for coffee, Colombia's chief export, to the highest level in a decade. The quantity sold in 1940-41, 4,400,000 bags, represents a 17 per cent advance over the preceding year. Gold production in 1941 reached a new high, and the output of petroleum, third in importance among Colombia's export commodities, showed a steady recovery. The major part of Colombian oil goes to Curaçao for refining. The sigatoka disease and the loss of German and Dutch markets caused a 35 per cent decline in the output of bananas, Colombia's fourth export product. See also PAN-AMERICAN AFFAIRS.