VECLASSINED Authority Stateletter Ihr By Me NARS Cate 2498 Church. He saw no reason to do so provided the Church, as is the case in Costa Rica, did not acquire economic power, as he recalled was the case in Spain. He said that Hyrely due to the Presidentig coaxing he had recently had a conversation with Mr. Reginald Hamer, the manager of the Compañia Bananera, adding that he found Mr. Hamer a rather flexible and understanding person (in complete contrast to his predecessor, Mr. George Chittenden. with whom he thought he could get along all right. As a matter of fact, Sr. Mora declared that th principal complaint which he and union officials here had against the Fruit Company concerned something which could be corrected without any cost to the country: The sapatacos or foromen are notorious for treating their workmen badly and even cruelly at times. Sr. Mora ro marked that he and his advisers merely want to humanizo this treatment of the peones working for the company.
816. 00k 12 While it has been reported on several occasions to that the chief objectives of the Vanguardia Popular party Al have been achieved as a result of the passage of the Labor Code and the Social Guarantees in 1943, Sr. Mora made it clear that he does not consider their battle won by any means. He asked if we were familiar with the party program, which was reported to the Department in dos patoh No. 416 of August 11, 1943. He then went on to outlino some of the chief points in his party program, beginning, with the necessity for oleaning up the Government administrative set up and placing it on an honest and efficient basis. He stated quite frankly that this had been one of the weakest points in the Calderón Guardia administration, or to use his words it was a ol aspecto nogativo. He then embarked on a discussion 01 cho na 510nal tax syatom, declaring that it was complotely inequitable. The customs tariff, in his opinion, is a patch verk affair which has been built up without any mothed largely as a result of what he called the compadrazgo system, whereby Government officials help out Thor Tiends in business and agriculture by raising tariffs in which the latter are interested. He cited in this connection the complete failure of the Costa Rican law, dosigned to creato a cattle industry hero; dospito tbe taot that the duty on live cattle has been progressively increased from ten to forty colones per head, available supply of eattle has not been appreciably inerensod The only result has been to penalize the consumers of meat (Sr. Mora in making this observation was hitting fairly close to Prorident Calderón Guardia and Teodoro Poado, who are both reputed to have extensive cattl. interests. He spoke at some length about the completoly defective income tax in orfoot here and doelared that the principl.
of taxation according to incomo must be established, unde the ingono of smaller wage earners freed of the many indirect taxos to which it is now subjeet. Another topio on which he discoursed at some length was the need for carefully selected immigration in this country, which he thought was entirely too sparsely populatod. He expressed 818. 00 1940 a proreronco