to provide the country, which depends on its imports of corn, with food. If this measure does not seem efficient we would have to consider the temporary occupation on our part of different Venezuelan harbor places and the levying of duties in those places.4o

These were rigorous measures and well calculated to force the hand of the Venezuelan government and to wrest from it concessions and recognitions that might be justified or not.*

41

This is precisely the question made by the Argentine note: Collection of debts by military force presupposes the occupation of the soil in order to make them effective and the occupation of the soil means the suppression or subordination of the local governments of the countries in which it is effective, which is contrary to the Monroe Doctrine.

President Monroe's Message of 1823 established, as we have said, not only that this country was not in the future open to European colonization, but also that the Powers of Europe could not oppress the new nations or in any manner control their destinies.42

And it must be recognized that there is no form of control more effective and no question more immediate than that which results from an embargo of the revenues or resources of a country. The statement that the material possession of the soil and these embargoes are transitory does not in any manner change this fact. It is sufficient to recall that Great Britain has for twenty-six years administered the government of Egypt temporarily and transitorily and with the sole object of controlling its finances. The forcible collec

"Moore's Digest, vol. 6, pages 588, 589.

"In this connection we may note the proverbial readiness with which governments exaggerate the amount of their claims. Louis Napoleon suggested the payment of fifteen millions of dollars as the emission of bonds by the banker Jecker, who in reality had only loaned 50,000 pesos to the revolutionary govern ment of Mexico. See Moore's Digest, vol. 6, page 484. In the last Venezuelan conflict Germany claimed 7,500,000 bolivars, of which the Mixed Commission that met in Caracas only allowed her 2,000,000 bolivars. The Italian claim amounted to 39,000,000 bolivars, and was reduced by the Commision to less than 6,000,000 bolivars. Moore's Digest, vol. 6, page 591. Cf. Atlantic Monthly, October, 1906, page 546.

"This second declaration, according to Mr. Foster, the distinguished ex-Secretary of State of the United States, incorporates a living principle which should be applied every time that circumstances demand it. Foster, A Century of American Diplomacy, page 442.

tion of debts with the accompanying acts of violence would thus in more than one instance expose the Monroe Doctrine to violation.

This abnormal situation it is that the United States has sought to avoid by various offers of arbitration. When in 1861 England, Spain, and France resolved to intervene in Mexico as a consequence of the suspension of the payments on the foreign debt decreed by President Juarez, Secretary Seward, fearing violation of American soil by the parties to the expedition, conceived the idea of the negotiation of a treaty with the debtor republic by which the United States was to assume the debt of that country for a period of five years and thus dissipate every incentive to foreign intervention. The American Senate disapproved this proceeding and the events followed in the manner now well known, - concluding with the evacuation of the territory by France, which from the first moment had been left as the only party in the contest. The Monroe Doctrine was thus compelled to oppose its direct veto to the ambition of Napoleon. In 1904 a new act of coercion on the part of the nations of Europe seemed imminent in the case of the Republic of Santo Domingo, which had fallen into complete bankruptcy. President Roosevelt avoided the repetition of the scenes of Venezuela by concluding the Treaty of February 4, 1905, which in more than one respect is similar to that projected at an earlier date by Mr. Seward. By this arrangement the United States at the same time that they guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Dominican Republic, take charge of the customs, administer the revenues, and divide the proceeds among the creditors to the account of their respective claims, exactly as an administrator or receiver of an insolvent commercial concern would do. We understand this treaty has received the ratification of the American Senate, but before it went into effect the government of the island, by a provisional convention appointed certain persons confidentially proposed by the President of the Union, to receive and administer the customs.

The reasons for this treaty have been expounded in a thorough manner by the American President in his message to the Senate: When the condition of affairs becomes such as it has become in Santo Domingo either we must submit to the likelihood of the infringement of the Monroe Doctrine or we must ourselves agree to some such arrangement as that herewith submitted to the Senate. * Under it the

* * *

custom houses will be administered peacefully, honestly and economically, forty-five per cent. of the proceeds being turned over to the Dominican government and the remainder being used by the United States to pay what portion of the debts it is possible to pay on an equitable basis. We on our part are simply performing in peaceful manner not only with the cordial acquiesence but in accordance with the earnest request of the Government concerned, part of that international duty which is necessarily involved in the assertion of the Monroe Doctrine. We are bound to show that we performed this duty in good faith and without any intention of aggrandizing ourselves at the expense of our weaker neighbors or of conducting ourselves otherwise than so as to benefit both these weaker neighbors and those European Powers which may be brought into contact with them. It is in the highest degree necessary that we should prove by our action that the world may trust in our good faith and may understand that this international duty will be performed by us within our own sphere in the interests not merely of ourselves but of all other nations and with strict justice towards all. If this is done, a general acceptance of the Monroe Doctrine will, in the end, surely follow; and this will mean an increase of the sphere in which peaceful measures for the settlement of international difficulties gradually displace those of a warlike character.43

From the spirit of the Dominican Treaty it will thus be seen that the right of European Powers to collect by force in this continent the debts due to their subjects is recognized, but inasmuch as this can only be effected by the occupation of the soil and of the customs, the United States, in order to safeguard the Monroe Doctrine, assumes a sort of supreme magistracy or of superintendence of the South American nations that have fallen behind in the matter of their revenues, making itself the administrator of their finances

"President Roosevelt's Message to the Senate, February 15, 1905, in Moore's Digest, vol. 6, pages 527, 528. See also his message of December of the same year, in which he says: "We must make it evident that we do not intend to permit the Monroe Doctrine to be used by any nation on this continent as a shield to protect it from the consequences of its own misdeeds against foreign nations." And farther on he observes: "We are liable at any time to be brought face to face with disagreeable alternatives. On the one hand this country would certainly decline to go to war to prevent a foreign government from collecting a just debt; on the other hand it is very inadvisable to permit any foreign Power to take possession, even temporarily, of the customs houses of an American Republic in order to enforce the payment of its obligations. The only escape from these alternatives may at any time be that we must ourselves undertake to bring about some arrangement by which so much as possible of a just obligation shall be paid.” The Annual Register, 1905, new series, pages 449, 450.

in order equitably to apportion them among the creditors who certainly, unless their vision is greatly distorted, will recognize their good fortune in finding an agent so powerful to defend their interests. The expedient is beyond a doubt efficient for the purpose of momentarily warding off European intervention, but it has very grave defects. The certainty of immediate recovery without molestation will tend in certain countries to foment questionable loans and far from scrupulous negotiations, so often contracted with revolutionary governments and fortuitous dictators, who do not hesitate to burden. the coming generation with measures that compromise economically the future of the country and its ultimate development. This expedient has the further more serious defect that it, in a certain measure, does violence to the sovereignty and in consequence wounds the susceptibilities of the State that has fallen into discredit, even though it may have agreed by treaty to delegate to its powerful protector a part of its governmental functions. This delicate relation would surely contribute to produce estrangement and arouse between the United States and the other nations of America a feeling of envy or jealousy, whereas everything ought to be done to smooth the way to perfect cordiality and good understanding. The National Review of London recently said that if the Drago Doctrine were accepted, the Monroe Doctrine would lose its terror for South America; the fearful vision of the United States in the exercise of international police functions thus disappearing. It is the fear that the United States may assume these functions that keeps the two continents separated.44

But the ideals of government are, or ought before all to be experimental and consequently advance slowly and laboriously. Communities with their vast, intricate and complex mechanism have to be handled with great tact and infinite precaution, owing to a series of transactions and compromises with necessity and with circumstances that change in aspect from moment to moment. This problem is more arduous in international relations because the prejudices of great groups of men and their natural tendencies have to be conciliated.

"National Review "American Affairs," London, November, 1906, page 507.

As in the polygon of forces, the line of motion is always a resultant of divergent tendencies. Fortunate is the case when, as in that in

question, a line of constant advance is traced.

Mr. Hay replied to the Argentine note with ceremonious but cordial evasion, neither accepting nor rejecting the doctrines "ably expounded by the Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs."

Mr. Root was more explicit:

I believe that if the acceptance of the principle that contracts between a nation and an individual are not collectible by force- concerning which subject His Excellency Dr. Drago, the distinguished Argentine Minister for Foreign Affairs, in 1902 addressed an able note to the Argentine Minister in Washington - can be secured at The Hague, a most important step will have been gained in the direction of narrowing the causes of war.45

At the banquet celebrated in his honor at the Opera House in Buenos Aires the eminent Secretary of State emphasized this opinion. He said:

We deem the use of force for the collection of ordinary contract debts to be an invitation to abuses in their necessary results far worse, far more baleful to humanity than that the debts contracted by any nation should go unpaid. We consider that the use of the army and navy of a great Power to compel a weaker Power to answer to a contract with a private individual, is both an invitation to speculation upon the necessities of the weak and struggling countries, and an infringement upon the sovereignty of those countries, and we are now, as we always have been, opposed to it; and we believe that, perhaps not to-day nor to-morrow, but through the slow and certain process of the future, the world will come to the same opinion.16

Finally, President Roosevelt wrote in his annual Message of December 6, 1906:

In my message to you on the 5th of December, 1905, I called your attention to the embarrassment that might be caused to this Government by the assertion by foreign nations of the right to collect by force of arms contract debts due by American republics to citizens of the collecting nation, and to the danger that the process of compulsory collection might result in the occupation of territory tending to become permanent. I then said:

"Note of March 22, 1906, to the Committee on Programme of the Rio Conference.

"Speeches in South America, page 158.