UPI Correspondent Urges Canada To Join in Hemisphere's Policy

"I wish Canada would join the OAS and participate not only in the criticism but also in the responsibility of Latin American policy," Henry Raymont, Nieman Fellow on leave from UPI, told a group of University of Toronto exchange students yesterday.

Canada feels none of the pressures that operate in the U.S.--like the presence of 200,000 Cuban exiles--and yet she objects to the United States' attempts to draw her into hemispheric affairs, Raymont added.

"It would be folly for the United States not to try to influence her allies," said Stanley H. Hoffmann, professor of Government and another member of the panel addressing the Tronto students. "Have you ever seen a relationship between countries not absolutely equal in strength that did not have a little arm-twisting?"

Hoffmann then commented on the "great American belief" that "if there is something wrong in the world we must be able to do something about it, and do it fast." There are two kinds of ways the U.S. handles these reforms, he said: bad pragmatism and good pragmatism.

Bad pragmatism Hoffmann defined as "planning every day in order to avoid the disasters that happened yesterday:" but good pragmatism is "trying to reach reasonable goals by suitable means."

One goal the United States must not aim for is a short-range effect like a vote against Castro in the U.N., added co-panelist Morton H. Halperin, research associate in the Center for International Affairs.

Josiah Norton, Latin American Consultant for A.D. Little, Inc., emphasized the "need for social consciousness on the part of American industry and government," and cited the efforts of Sears Roebuck to use local materials and raise the economic level of Mexican towns where it has branches.

In addition, large land-holdings must be broken up in order to bring social change, Norton maintained.

He referred to one Venezuelan patron who recognized the need for land reform while studying in the U.S., and divided his estate of 20,000 square miles among the tenant farmers. Resulting economic progress has been striking, said Norton.