spoken, less subject to the restraints imposed by international friction such as mars the relation between the United States and some of the northern republics. Of these southern states none has been a more ardent advocate of continental unity than Brazil. And yet during the hundred years of her independence she has had abundant occasion for conflict with the surrounding countries. On her northern, western, and southern borders she touches every state in South America except Chile and perhaps Ecuador. This vast frontier, in the beginning vague and ill-defined, gave rise to numerous boundary disputes, all of which, greatly to the credit of the states concerned, have been satisfactorily adjusted. In the early years, it is true, Brazil was involved in armed conflict with the Argentine Confederation, and later with Paraguay. Fortunately, however, these conflicts left no lasting bitterness and today the republic enjoys to a marked degree the good will and affection not only of these neighbors, but also of the other republics throughout the continent.

With the United States the relations of this greatest of the southern republics have always been of the most friendly sort. As early as 1824 the Government of Brazil officially declared the Monroe declaration to be applicable to all the states of the continent, since it recognized the necessity of combining and standing shoulder to shoulder in the defense of American rights and in the defense of the integrity of American territory. Nearly a hundred years later, just after the United States entered the World War, we seem to hear an echo of these same sentiments in the words of the Brazilian Ambassador at Washington. "The republic," he declared, upon informing the State Department of the break of his government with Germany, "thus recognized the fact that one of the belligerents is a constituent portion of the American continent and that we are bound to that belligerent by traditional friendship and the same sentiment in the defense of the vital interests of America and the accepted principles of law." To this he added that the events which brought Brazil to the side of the United States were imparting to her foreign policy a practical shape of continental solidarity.

Brazil, moreover, has invariably lent her powerful support to the PanAmerican movement as expressed in the International American Conferences. While still an empire she sent delegates to the first conference at Washington, and while that conference was in session the bloodless revolution which changed her form of government took place. The delegates then at Washington continued as representatives of the republic. Some years later the third conference was held at the Brazilian capital, on which occasion the government and people manifested in unmistakable form their loyal adherence to the principles of Pan-American unity. Senhor Nabuco, president of the conference, and for many years Brazilian Ambassador at Washington, declared that the aim of the conferences was intended to be the creation of an American opinion and an American public spirit.

He believed that they should never aim at forcing the opinion of a single one of the nations taking part in them; that in no case should they intervene collectively in the affairs or interests that the various nations might wish to reserve for their own exclusive deliberation. "To us," he said, "it seems that the great object of these conferences should be to express collectively what is already understood to be unanimous, to unite in the interval between one and another what may already have completely ripened in the opinion of the continent, and to impart to it the power resulting from an accord among all nations."

Two years later Senhor Nabuco was a speaker at the laying of the cornerstone of the magnificent building of the Pan-American Union at Washington. He declared on this occasion that there had never been a parallel for the sight which that ceremony presented "that of twenty-one nations, of different languages, building together a house for their common deliberTo this he added: "The more impressive is the scene as these countries with all possible differences between them in size and population, have established their union on the basis of the most absolute equality. Here the vote of the smallest balances the vote of the greatest. So many sovereign states would not have been drawn so spontaneously and so strongly together, as if by irresistible force, if there did not exist throughout them, at the bottom or at the top of each national conscience, the feeling of a destiny common to all America."

The little Republic of Uruguay has left no doubt as to its attitude. In an address on the occasion of Mr. Root's visit to Montevideo in 1906, the President, Señor Battle y Ordoñez, declared that America as a whole should aim at the ideal of a just peace founded on respect for the rights of all nations; that a Pan-American public opinion should be created and made effective by systematizing international conduct, with a view to suppress injustice and to establish among the nations ever more and more profoundly cordial relations; and finally, that the Pan-American conferences were destined to become a modern amphictyon to whose decisions all the great questions would be submitted.

Shortly after the United States entered the World War, Admiral Caperton with a fleet of war vessels paid a visit to Montevideo. The relations between Uruguay and Germany were at that time strained almost to the breaking-point and the fleet was received with extraordinary manifestations of friendship. The cabinet passed a resolution, which was subsequently published as a presidential decree, declaring that, whereas the Uruguayan Government had on various occasions proclaimed the principle of American solidarity, "no American country which, in defense of its own rights, is in a state of war with nations of other continents, shall be treated as a belligerent." El Dia, a leading daily of the Uruguayan capital, approved the action of the government, declaring: "America is one. Everything unites it; nothing separates it." That these were not merely

the expressions of war-time enthusiasm is evidenced by a carefully prepared plan suggested by President Brum in the spring of 1920 for the organization of an American League of Nations on the basis of absolute equality, which he proposed should act in harmony with the League of Nations under the Covenant of Versailles.

The Argentine Republic succeeded in maintaining neutrality throughout the World War and naturally no official pronouncements such as those made by Brazil and Uruguay during that period are to be expected. Moreover, we should not fall into the error of regarding a break with Germany as a test of Pan-Americanism. Solidarity, it is true, is of the essence of Pan-Americanism, but no less essential to the conception is the principle of non-interference, which is made effective not by collective obligation but by individual responsibility. The United States, guided by its traditional policy, refrained from participation in the conflict until compelled to do so by the invasion of its rights. On similar grounds, Brazil was forced to declare war and Uruguay to break off diplomatic relations with Germany. The expressions which we have quoted above were incidental to the abandonment of neutrality, and likewise the absence of such declarations on the part of the Argentine Government can be accounted for by its adherence to neutrality. Public opinion, however, as voiced in the press of Buenos Aires was predominantly American in sympathy. Moreover, Argentina in recent years has been among the staunchest supporters of the basic principles of Pan-American policy. In the words of one of the most eminent of her sons, the late Luis M. Drago, America seeks power and wealth not "in conquest and displacement, but in collaboration and solidarity." "It has been constituted," he maintains, "a separate political factor, a new and vast theatre for the development of the human race, which will serve as a counterpoise to the great civilizations of the other hemisphere, and so maintain the equilibrium of the world."

A territorial dispute, usually referred to as the Tacna-Arica question, growing out of the war between Chile, on one side, and Peru and Bolivia, on the other, has for the past generation disturbed the peace between these nations and caused more or less concern throughout the continent. There is reason, however, to hope that the question, which is now in the process of adjustment, will furnish in the end but another proof of the effective unity of America. Indeed, in the diplomatic correspondence which resulted in the recent agreement between Chile and Peru to enter into direct negotiations at Washington with a view to the final settlement of the dispute, striking evidence was given on both sides of what may be called a Pan-American consciousness. In one of his communications to the Chilean Government, the Minister of Foreign Relations of Peru, referring to the fact that the Government of Chile had declined to recognize the jurisdiction of the League of Nations over the question on the ground that it was an American political problem, proposed "in the interest of American cor

diality" that the whole matter should be submitted to arbitration at the initiative of the United States. On both sides as the interchange of communications went on such expressions as "the welfare of our two nations and of America as a whole," "in the interest of American peace and concord," repeatedly occurred, demonstrating a decent respect for the opinion of the whole community of American nations.

To present the subject at greater length from the Hispanic American view-point would make the case no more convincing. Suffice it to say that the sober, responsible, representative, opinion of the states of Spanish and Portuguese origin finds itself generally in accord with the best opinion in the United States. On the other hand, the contrary views, varying from mild skepticism to the bitterest opposition, which are often met with in the public press not only of the Hispanic American countries but of the United States as well, should not be ignored. Though seldom proceeding from authoritative sources, yet these hostile expressions have a plausible basis in certain acts of alleged aggression on the part of the United States, and to a less degree perhaps in disputes between other states of the continent. The complete disarming of the critics of Pan-Americanism can only be accomplished by the removal of all cause for distrust. This is a task to which the statesmen of both continents should devote their most earnest attention.

An attempt must now be made to bring the loose threads of this discussion together into a concise description of Pan-Americanism. As to its genus, the lexicographers give us a choice among the following: tendency, aspiration, idea, principle, doctrine, advocacy, sentiment, none of which satisfies. Former Secretary of State Lansing suggests another. Pan-Americanism, he says, is a policy-an international policy of the Americas. This seems to assume some Pan-American agency, such as the International American Conferences, to formulate the policy. But what we conceive to be Pan-Americanism seems to lie back of these conferences. It seems to be, in relation to them, cause rather than effect. The conferences, Ambassador Nabuco truly said, merely express collectively what is already felt to be unanimous.

There is another way of viewing the matter which may bring us nearer the true meaning of Pan-Americanism. Wilson speaks of the American states as constituting a "unit in world affairs"; Cornejo, a Peruvian, of a "continental system"; Drago of a "separate political factor"; and Moore declares that Pan-Americanism is obviously derived from the conception that there is such a thing as an American system. This idea is inherent in the Monroe Doctrine, and it found expression two years before Monroe's pronouncement in a speech of Clay's in which he declared that it was in our power to become the "center of a system which would constitute the rallying point of human wisdom against all the despotism of the Old World." Such also was the basic idea of the Panama Congress. This view of Amer

ica as a separate political factor is not confined to the Western Hemisphere. European observers have at last come to recognize it, and even in textbooks of international law, such as that of the late T. J. Lawrence, one may find the "American State System" discussed at length. This takes us back to the conception of Pan-Americanism as involving some sort of union.

If then there is an American system, an American society of nations, there must be the beginnings of an international government, for a group of states, no more than a group of individuals, can not live together without some semblance of government. But government implies constitution; that is, a collection of principles formally expressed or not, according to which the powers of government and the rights of the governed and the relations between the government and the governed, are adjusted. There has of course thus far been developed in America no definite, tangible, organ of international government. The International American Conferences may be considered as such, if at all, only in the vaguest sense of the term. The Pan-American Union with its magnificent home in Washington, cannot be so considered; for it is little more than a bureau, nonpolitical in character. Back of this bureau, however, and back of the International American Conferences, there is a moral union of the American states, based upon a body of principles which have, in the course of the years from the struggles for independence to the present time, become more or less clearly defined. To these principles we must turn for the meaning of Pan-Americanism. They are:

1. Independence. By this is meant complete political separation from Europe, the American states neither interfering in the affairs of the European states, nor allowing those states to interfere in their own affairs. If the lines of political connection with Europe had been maintained, obviously there could have been no American state system, and naturally no Pan-Americanism.

2. Representative government. The fact that all American states have cherished from the beginning of their existence a common political ideal, the ideal of popular, representative government, has been and is a powerful bond of union between them.

3. Territorial integrity. The states of this hemisphere are a unit in declaring that conquest is inadmissible in American public law. The fact that the boundaries between the Hispanic-American states remain today practically as determined by the uti possidetis of 1810, is evidence of the force of this principle. The repeated declarations of the United States to the effect that it neither covets the territory of its neighbors nor seeks to aggrandize itself by conquest give additional sanction to the rule.

4. Law instead of force. There is no balance of power in America, no group of powerful states imposing its decisions by force upon weaker states. Action in the International American Conferences is taken by unanimous