Señor Paredes, when asked by his American interviewer "to what he attributed the recent exposure of wrongs committed several years ago," replied, "It may be that certain Englishmen are a little jealous of the cordial relations existing between Peru and the United States." There is revealed here the somewhat singular situation of Peru's international relations, with its atmosphere of jealousies. Peru strives to look towards what it considers the dominant power in that hemisphere, and years past has been engaged in what might be termed a one-sided political flirtation with the United States. Peru has hoped to enlist the sympathy of the great northern republic, which might strengthen her hands against her old enemy Chile, between whom and the United States there exists a veiled antagonism. The rankling question of Tacna and Arica has been at the base of the Peruvian attitude. The friendship of the United States would be more valuable, in Peruvian eyes, than that of Great Britain. Furthermore, questions between Peru and the Peruvian Corporation, the powerful company which controls all Peru's railways and which, though international as regards its shareholders and its capitalisation of £22,000,000 sterling, is operated and controlled from London, have often been acute. Each claims that the other has failed to fulfil its contracts, and whilst there have been faults on both sides, the Peruvian Governments of past years were those who first created the difficult situation. The Corporation has been accused of a sustained, unfriendly attitude towards Peru and of an endeavour to block outside foreign enterprise in the country. It is, however, in Paris that feeling among financiers against Peru has been most acute, and Peru has been in the past practically shut out from the French financial market owing to the unsettled claims of French creditors. In general terms the United States is considered to be the more desirable friend, not Europe, and thus it is that North American friendship is cultivated. There is, however, no unfriendliness between Peru and Great Britain, and the best Peruvian statesmen have done their best to cultivate good relations. But, like all American people, the Peruvians are sensitive, and they deeply resent outside criticism.