disputes, but may entirely supersede the original disputant and assume exclusive control of the negotiations. Great Britain cannot, of course, bind any other nation by her action in this matter, but she has set up a precedent which may in future be quoted with 'great effect against herself, and she has greatly strengthened the hands of the United States Government in any dispute that may arise in the future between a South American Republic and a European Power in which the United States may desire to intervene.

If we choose to turn back to a time before this 'far-reaching' concession had been made, and when it was believed that it would not be made, we shall find the same conviction asserted in still more emphatic language. It must be observed that the Monroe Doctrine on which Mr. Olney relies has received an entirely new development in his Despatch and in Mr. Cleveland's Message. Lord Salisbury expresses his full concurrence in the view "that any disturbance of the existing territorial distribution in the Western Hemisphere by any fresh acquisition on the part of any European State would be a highly inexpedient change." But the recognition of this expediency does not cover the deductions from the Monroe Doctrine which Mr. Olney's Despatch puts forward, and which President Cleveland makes the basis of the most astounding proposal, perhaps, that has ever been advanced by any Government, in time of peace, since the days of Napoleon.... It is impossible to admit that the interests of the United States are affected by every frontier dispute between our colonies and their neighbours, and that therefore the right of imposing arbitration in every case of the kind must be conceded.' I quote from the Times of the 18th of December, the day after the publication of President Cleveland's Message; I might quote from almost any other English newspaper of that date. The universal opinion in this country at the time was that the claims advanced by Mr. Olney were a great innovation. And what Lord Salisbury said last autumn, what nine out of ten intelligent Englishmen said last winter, what a number of the most learned and authoritative of American jurists urged as soon as they were made acquainted with the text of the Secretary of State's Note, competent foreign observers continue to maintain still. The best informed French and German journalists-seldom inclined to view the aspirations and pretensions of Great Britain with indulgence-declared that Lord Salisbury had the better of the argumentative duel; and, though they acknowledge the equity and prudence of the compromise which has been reached, they think it necessary to point out that it involves possibilities of considerable gravity, not merely to England and the United States, but also to the civilised world in general. The Cologne Gazette-echoing what is said to be the view of the German Foreign Office-insists that a precedent has been established by the joint action of the two AngloSaxon Powers, the effects of which are likely to be felt long after the British Guiana boundary question has been forgotten. 'We wish to take the first opportunity of declaring,' said the Rhenish news

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paper, in an article which was reproduced with approval by the semi-official Norddeutsche Zeitung, that the precedent in question is at most an English, and in no way a European, precedent.' Nevertheless the German writer admits that the United States has entered upon a line of policy from which it cannot easily withdraw, and that in the future, and in the light of this Venezuela transaction, American public opinion will unhesitatingly demand the intervention of the Federal Government in any dispute between an American State and a European Power, whether territorial questions be involved or not. The Temps, which is the best instructed of French newspapers where foreign affairs are involved, writes in a similar strain. What specially concerns Frenchmen, it argues, is the countenance Great Britain has given to a novel and extreme deduction from the Monroe Doctrine:

Ainsi, du consentement exprès du Royaume-Uni, le gouvernement de Washington se verra investi du droit de s'immiscer dans toute querelle territoriale entre une puissance européenne et un Etat du nouveau monde. Il obtiendra le droit de se porter fort, même sans mandat exprès, pour l'un de ses clients. Il pourra, d'accord avec la puissance européenne engagée dans le litige, mais sans l'intervention de l'Etat américain que représente l'autre partie, régler souverainement le mode, les conditions, la forme et le fonds de la solution destinée à mettre fin au conflit.

Ce sont là de bien grosses innovations en matière de droit international. Elles consacrent la suprématie absolue des Etats-Unis dans leur hémisphère.

There can be no doubt that these French and German publicists are right. Great changes in the relations of the European Powers towards the States of the American continent, and in the relations of those States to one another, have been produced by the assertion on one side, and the admission, at least in part, on the other, of that new and enlarged version of the Monroe principle, which may be conveniently known as the Olney Doctrine.

This Doctrine is embodied in the Despatch, so often referred to, of the 20th of July, 1895, emphasised and clinched in Mr. Cleveland's famous Message to Congress. The Despatch is a very verbose, voluminous, and elaborate document, couched in a rhetorical style such as is not commonly employed in formal State Papers. But though its argument is loose and its phraseology singularly wanting in scientific precision, its general meaning is clear enough. To put it briefly Mr. Olney's main propositions are that American questions are for American decision;' that no European Power has the right to intervene forcibly in the affairs of the continent, or to seek territorial extension at the expense of any existing American State; that the United States, owing to its superior size and power, is the protector and champion of all other American nations; and that it has the right and duty to intervene in all territorial disputes in the Western Hemisphere, whether such disputes directly affect its interests or not These propositions are deduced from a variety of general statements

of principle, some of which are of a very remarkable and original character, such for instance as the axiom that permanent political union between a European and an American State is unnatural and inexpedient.' Lord Salisbury, as the representative of an empire which includes Canada, thought it necessary to place on record his 'emphatic denial' of this extraordinary proposition, and of many other statements of fact and theories of politics which Mr. Olney's Despatch contained; nor did he assent to the State Secretary's view that 'American questions are for American decision,' or concede that general right of intervention in the affairs of the continent which the United States Government claimed. But in that strangely confused and indefinite system which is called International Law, acts go for more than words. If the jurist will be able to turn to the cogent piece of argument in which Lord Salisbury dismissed the new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, the statesman will point to the fact that the Government over which Lord Salisbury presided did eventually comply with the cardinal demand this new interpretation embodied. Whatever we may think of Mr. Olney's historical and juristical generalisations, we cannot deny that Her Majesty's Government has admitted his two main assertions of practical policy. His long Despatch boils down' to this: the general right of the United States to intervene in American disputes in order to secure that they shall be solved by methods which the Government of the Union considers just and equitable. When the two Secretaries of State come to close quarters in their Despatches, the argument really turns on this point. You have only the right to intervene on any question which affects your interests, said Lord Salisbury, whether the question be in America or elsewhere. You may interfere between Venezuela and British Guiana it is true, but merely on the same grounds as you might have interfered, if you had thought proper, between China and Japan. Not at all, said Mr. Olney; we are not bound to consider whether we have special interests in the matter. The United States may intervene because it is the United States-'not simply by reason of its high character as a civilised State, nor because wisdom and justice and equity are the invariable characteristics of the dealings of the United States;' but also because, in addition to all other grounds, its infinite resources, combined with its isolated position, render it master of the situation.' In other words, the United States, being by far the largest and the strongest of American Powers, definitely asserts its right to a paramount control of the States-system of the continent. And this claim, it must be repeated, Lord Salisbury has conceded. No one has been able to show that any special interests of the United States have been involved, or that the Republic is more directly affected by the Guiana boundary question than Mexico or Peru, or any other American State. If we have recognised the American claim to determine this dispute, without the invitation

of one disputant, and over the head of the other, it is an admission of the political hegemony of the United States in the two Americas. The precedent has been established which it is the chief object of the Olney Doctrine to set up.

It may be said that this precedent is not binding in the tribunal of diplomacy. As I have just shown French and German protests have already been issued, and it will be open to any foreign Governments, if the occasion should arise, to declare that the general system of International Law cannot be modified by a private arrangement between two Powers. But if the civilised world is not committed to the fundamental article of the new Doctrine, the United States is; and that is the true importance of the matter. We have seen how President Monroe's Message-which was in fact a purely academic commentary on events, not followed, or intended to be followed, by definite action-has become an inseparable part of the public policy of the United States, and has assumed in the eyes of American citizens a sanctity almost equal to that of the Constitution itself. Probably the same weight of authority will not attach to the policy laid down by President Cleveland and Mr. Olney. But authority it will have the authority of an accomplished fact, and the authority of a successful vindication of a principle which could not be subsequently abandoned without some appearance of humiliation. America is a democratic country, in which the sovereign is an electorate keenly alive to the national dignity and impulsively quick to resent any sacrifice of the national honour. Nothing helps a party in difficulties more than a show of spirit in foreign affairs, nor injures it worse than any suspicion of weakness or pusillanimity. What has been gained by the assertion of the Olney Doctrine cannot be lost. Successive Secretaries and Presidents must take care that this high-water mark is not obliterated, if indeed it is not pushed further outwards. One would not give much for the political fortunes of an American statesman, who let it be known that he thought the precedent of 1896 was a mistake, and that he saw no reason why American questions should be reserved for American decision, or why a dispute between two Powers, neither of which approached to within many hundreds of miles of the United States, could not be left to settle itself without calling for the intervention of Washington. No politician could now say that; no party could afford to support him if he did. The United States is practically bound to intervene as protector, champion, and judge in equity whenever territorial changes on the American continent are contemplated, or the rights of an American State are menaced; to intervene by diplomacy if that will suffice, by fleets and armies if it will not.

It is not the object of these few pages to discuss the wisdom or justice of this new policy, but merely to point out that new it is and that it must carry with it new, and weighty, consequences. Many

2

Englishmen will feel a good deal of sympathy with the spirit that animates it. The violent language of Mr. Olney's Note, its fulsome and excessive laudation of the United States, its contemptuous disregard of the susceptibilities of other great nations, and its glaring misrepresentations of fact and history, caused natural offence in this country. Behind, however, its extravagances and perversities there lies a sentiment for which, even in its audacity, Englishmen must feel a certain respect. We are the "biggest" and also the best Power in America, and we mean not merely to "boss the show," but to see that the show is run upon the lines we approve. We are Republicans, and we think everybody else ought to be Republicans, because that is the best form of government, and makes people more virtuous than any other. We don't want European influence or European political methods here. We intend to keep America for the Americans, and make all the peoples of the continent work up to the standard set by ourselves. Therefore no fresh European Powers are to get a hand in, and those that are in already are to be cleared out as soon as convenient.' Mr. Olney does not quite say this, but it is what his arguments really mean. And if the end could be attained, if it were possible to keep the New World free from the strife, the ambitions, the wearing intrigues, the jealous rivalries, the burden of armaments, the constant dread, and sometimes the awfu} reality, of war, which have saddened the Old-what Englishman would seek to put obstacles in the way of realising the comfortable dream? By all means, he would say, let the Americans try the experiment. Only, from the depth of an Old-World experience that ranges over two thousand years of fierce conflict among the nations, he may be permitted to remind Americans that the experiment is no cheap and easy one. It will need something more than large words and elevated sentiments to carry it to a successful conclusion.

Even in embarking upon the modified form of this enterprise which I take to be implied in the Olney Doctrine, the United States has saddled itself with a vast addition to its burdens and its duties. It has asserted-successfully asserted-for itself a claim to be the general protector and arbiter of the American continent. The responsibility thus assumed is a heavy one. Nothing like it has existed in the world since the downfall of the Roman Empire. Many powerful modern States have exercised a hegemony, or supremacy, over independent, civilised neighbours; but no other has yet attempted to regulate the affairs of a whole quarter of the habitable globe, or to make itself answerable for a large number of separate States, many of them of enormous extent, and some of them hundreds or even

...

2 The people of the United States have a vital interest in the cause of popular self-government. They believe it to be for the healing of all nations, and that civilisation must either advance or retrograde accordingly as its supremacy is extended or curtailed.'-Mr. Olney's Despatch: