Cooke's Tour

From Brazil this week came a dream of the future. The dream: that, better supplied than the U.S. with bauxite and magnesium, and equally well supplied with potential water power, Brazil may become one of the great light metal and aircraft producing countries of the world.

Co-authors of the dream are a politician and an engineer. The politician is Joao Alberto Lins de Barros, Brazil's economic minister. The engineer is Morris Llewellyn Cooke, onetime pupil of Frederick ("Speedy") Taylor (industrial engineer and famous advocate of the speed-up), and for the past few years a general handyman to Washington performing such disagreeable jobs as helping settle the Mexican oil dispute.

Two months ago Cooke was sent to Brazil with an economic staff to determine what the U.S. can do to speed up Brazilian industrial output for the war. He saw magnificent resources--largest high-grade iron deposits in the world, rich bauxite fields, big nickel deposits, unlimited water power. Last week Cooke was ready to return to the U.S. With Joao Alberto he issued a prospectus of the report he will submit to the U.S. Government.

Aware of the limitations of shipping space, the prospectus is cautious as to what the U.S. can give Brazil now in the way of machine tools which Brazil needs if she is to increase her industrial output immediately. But in terms of the future the prospectus goes the limit--provided that Brazil can get from the U.S. one priceless intangible: technical skill and know-how; and one tangible: capital equipment. How she is to get these two things, and whether her development will involve American private enterprise or will be a huge Government project, Engineer Cooke leaves extremely vague. All he would say as he packed his bags for the U.S. was: "After a few weeks here we became a batch of optimists."

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