The Monroe doctrine is a protest against national dishonour by neighbouring States; that they should conduct their political institutions on broad moral principles, with justice towards all and cruelty towards none, thus assuring those blessings and that prosperity that a well-governed and free independent people can alone enjoy. In the new and intimate relations existing between the United States and the Spanish-American Republics-the commercial and social ties-no one country can defy all obligations of right and justice to its citizens without calling forth a protest on the part of a neighbouring State. The natural and friendly intercourse existing has produced certain moral unwritten obligations that have all the force of written laws, and, therefore, even a free country cannot ignore the consequences of its own acts when hostile or inimicable to the principles of natural right and justice. In other words, no State, any more than an individual, is to-day permitted to do precisely as it likes even within its own territorial limits, for States, like men, are under control.

When I speak of the Spanish-American States I refer to lawfully-constituted States with something more than a de facto government born in revolution, sustained by brute. force, and existing in defiance of every constitutional guarantee. Governments that spring into existence as one revolution follows another in quick succession, and which are domineered over by a savage in soldier's clothing under an autocratic and dictatorial regime, cannot be classed among the Spanish-American States, much less among the family of civilised nations. Their cruel ideas and disorderly forms of government keep them beyond the pale of recognition, and it is precisely this anarchical lawless condition, when its continuance becomes a menace to the property and lives of its inhabitants, that justifies the United States in interfering in the name of humanity.

In deploring the instability of the Spanish-American

Republics, Buchanan, when Secretary of State, said

SO

long as it should be in the power of successive military chieftains to subvert the governments of those Republics by the sword, their people could not expect to enjoy the blessings of liberty, and anarchy, confusion, and civil war must be the result."1

When the Mexican people become capable of exercising self-control, then, and only then, will a system of political government like our own be possible. This should come from within, but if necessary it will come from without; but that it will come is merely a question of time. Situated as it is, bordering our own territory, the rights and interests of the United States in settling this problem are paramount.

In Mexico we have but a repetition of the condition of things that existed in Santo Domingo. It is absurd to talk about constitutional government in a country where the great mass of the population are either turbulent Indians or ignorant, indolent, and arrogant creoles without the first rudiments of education, who live on the most scanty food and roam about as independent armed bandits, ever ready to follow any revolutionary leader who will promise food and plunder. There has never been a really constitutional government in Mexico-that is, a goverment that has been in reality anything more than under the military dictatorship of some revolutionary adventurer-so that when it comes to backing up one set of revolutionists, because they call themselves constitutionalists, against another band of revolutionists who happen through open murder to be in possession of the seat of power, the whole situation becomes a political farce. Better either to leave them alone to settle their differences between themselves unaided, or, in the name of humanity, put a stop to lawlessness that is devastating one of the fairest of lands, and establish a constitutional

1 Moore, 6 V., p. 436.

government, not only in name, but in fact. The day may come when this latter alternative will become necessary, but before that is finally accomplished the blood of a hundred thousand men may dye the sands between the Rio Grande and the City of Mexico.

President Wilson said: "We have gone down to Mexico to serve mankind if we can find a way." Would it not have been wiser and more consistent with the principles of our foreign policy first to have found the way and then to have gone down?

This, however, is but in keeping with that sense of national humiliation and dishonour that attended our naval excursion into Mexican waters, when, after months and months of fruitless waiting and indecision, the United States abandoned its helpless refugees to seek shelter and protection on board British vessels, under the British flag.

To quote from the Paris Herald, May 6th 1914 :—

"A man standing on the highest deck suddenly took "from his pocket a large British flag. He unfurled it and flung it high above his head. I am an American,' he "shouted, 'born and reared. As a child at school I was

taught and believed that the American flag was the "emblem of strength and safety. Now I tell you I am "ashamed of my country!'"

How different would have been the incisiveness of such a man as President Roosevelt at such a crisis. "Ninetenths of wisdom," he justly says, "is to be wise in time. and at the right time; and my whole foreign policy was based on the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis to make it improbable that we should run into serious trouble."1

With our present foreign policy-how can we expect, in the words of Washington, to "be a nation-be Americans!

1 Autobiography, 548, 549.

The Monroe doctrine was conceived in the spirit of peace and not of war; it was founded in friendship and goodwill towards all free people and on humanitarian grounds.

The suggestions from Canning to Rush were made with a view to prevent war and secure peace, and Jefferson was clearly of Canning's opinion that such a declaration would prevent instead of provoking war, thus showing the pacific purpose with which the Monroe doctrine was originally formulated.

The doctrine declared by Monroe was a doctrine of peace, and if it can be maintained as such, the purpose and glory of its original conception will continue as the golden rule of American policy. It was based on the idea of freedom from European interference or intermeddling, and while formerly unrequired by European Powers and forming no link in the chain of International law, it will undoubtedly be respected, and justly so as long as the United States affords no just ground of complaint. Το live up to this standard, however, the United States must see that the free States of this hemisphere live in peace and goodfellowship, and that a stable peace prevails among them, uniting this Continent in an international fellowship. We cannot defy interference where interference is just and in order to redress a wrong or enforce a debt; and if we are to maintain the Monroe doctrine in all its pristine glory, then it behoves us, through every pacific and diplomatic means, to enforce on the part of our sister Republics a strict and faithful obedience to their duties and obligations as honourable States. These means are those of peace and not of war, and it was to insure the harmony, development and commercial and industrial advancement of the North American States that the Monroe doctrine was promulgated. Unfortunately, like many great truths, it has been often misconceived and misinterpreted. It has

been used as an aggressive, offensive, threatening menace to Europe against interference, whether just or unjust; as bristling with the sound of war; as a battle-cry of patriotic defiance. European aggression on our Continent is to be deplored, perhaps frustrated, but this is not to be accomplished by an appeal to arms in forced opposition, but by the adoption and enforcement of a wise and judicious policy of moral suasion at home among our lesser nations that will reduce them from belligerent States to peaceful Powers, and thus do away with all cause for foreign interference.

This is the spirit of true democracy. In Europe the militant system is predominant, while in the United States the peaceful commercial sentiment guides and rules the land. But to insure peace, stable government must prevail, and it was to guarantee Europe against the breach of this peace that we declared against European interference. We cannot permit our sister States to repudiate their debts, or struggle in endless rebellion; we cannot allow the wanton destruction of life and property to continue, and a condition of unrestrained anarchy to exist, and then complain against the protest of the interference of another foreign nation because we are remiss in our own obligations to see that this Continent is not stained by the useless shedding of human blood. The Monroe doctrine was not intended to be and is not hostile to any nation. It was not and is not a doctrine of defiance. It was not intended as an aggressive policy. It was aimed against war and unjust aggression at home. It said to Europe,

let these free North American States live in peace, and if you will not let them, then we will see that you do; but we cannot maintain a part of the doctrine and injure the rest. Whether this policy was wise or unwise, it is now too late to think of changing it. It has become so firmly embodied in the popular mind that no administration would be strong enough to eradicate it from the heart of the people; it