The Chaco Truce The Chaco War appears at last to
have ended. It would be unwise to speak more certainly as yet, for there have been false reports of peace before, and either army is capable of repudiating arrangements made by the civil Ministers. But if the news is true it reflects much credit on Brazil and the Argentine, whose mediation has been successful where the long efforts of the League of Nations, useful as they were no doubt in paving the way, have failed. Presumably the two armies fighting in a pestilential climate have reached a deadlock. What either of them has gained by close on three years of jungle warfare no one knows. But it is to be hoped that a great deal more than has yet been disclosed will some day be discovered. Is, for example, oil the real cams Belli ? And what is the evidence that oil in quantities exists in the Chaco ? Have the allegations regarding the activities of munition-makers' agents any substance, and if so how much ? Had the League embargo on the export of munitions to the belligerents, important pre- cedent as it was, any effect at all ? If not how was its success frustrated ? It should be someone's business to get reliable answers to these and other not less pertinent questions.
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