Trivial Tragedy

Many citizens of the free and independent Republic of Bolivia were somewhat downcast last week by what might seem a trivial cause. Bolivia is almost twice as large in area as Texas and has about the population of Chicago; but last week this sovereign state was troubled by the destruction of its entire merchant marine. The destruction was trivial in its way, because the Bolivian merchant marine consisted of a single ship, the Presidente Saavedra, named for onetime (1921-26) President Dr. Bautista Saavedra* of Bolivia. In the spacious harbor of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the one-ship fleet of Bolivia slowly began to take water last week from an unrevealed cause, then sank. Bolivians are vexed because their country has no seaport, being completely surrounded by Peru, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and (completing the clockwise circle) Chile. Everyone knows that a solution urged by the U. S. State Department to settle the dispute between Chile and Peru over Tacna-Arica (TIME, Dec. 13,) is the proposal that this bit of territory be given to Bolivia as a "corridor to the ocean" (Pacific).

*His successor, President Dr. Hernando Siles, took office 18 months ago.