LATIN INTERVENTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15594, 28 April 1914, Page 6

LATIN INTERVENTION.

When the English-speaking American marches to war, the sympathies of all English-speaking men travel j with him, but the antipathies of i the Latin-Americans are also his.' The South American republics have almost unanimously joined in an offer of mediation between the United States and Mexico, such mediation being only less than intervention because they are notoriously unable to keep the sea against the Washington Government. Popular feeling in these republics is strongly with the Mexicans. Not only do they think much less than we do of the anarchy and barbarism into which Mexico has drifted since the fall of the dictator Diaz, but they fear and resent the overshadowing authority of the United States. This resentment is based on all the differences that exist between men, nations, and institutions of diverse and characteristic races,. It has found expression of recent years in the "Pan-Latin" movement, into ! which have been drawn all the states of Spanish or Portuguese origin in South and Central America, With 1 the exception of Argentine and ' Uruguay, these states are all numeri- ' cally dominated by a mixed breed, but this only intensifies their antagonism to the colour-proud American. These Latin states arc dispro- ' portionately weak because Argen--5 tine, Chili, and Brazil equally aspire 1 to the hegemony of the continent. ' They may find union through the } vivid political imagination which 1 they possess in no small measure There can be little immediate danger of any combination of LatinAmerican states on behalf of Mexico, ' but it is reasonably certain that the experience of Mexico will be a ' powerful influence towards their closer union.