Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1928. THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 82, 17 January 1928, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1928. THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

The United States delegates to the Pan-American Congress, it is reported, will preserve intact their country’s complete liberty of action in protecting her rights and interests by forcible means, if necessary, in the Western Hemisphere, particularly in the Caribbean region, and will permit no impairment of the Monroe doc-

trine. According to the Monroe Doctrine, which was formulated in 1823, any intervention of a European Power in the affairs of any State in America, from the Canadian border to Cape Horn, is a cause of war against that State by the United States. After 1815 the Austrian Prime Minister, Metteruich, established the Holy ,Alliance —of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain (a half-heart-ed member) — for the purpose of checking revolutionary ideas by strengthening autocratic monarchy all over the world. Intervention everywhere was the basic method agreed upon as the basis of this famous coalition. In 1822

the Holy Alliance applied its basic principle by two breaking revolutionary movements in Italy, arising out of discontent with the Treaty of Vienna, signed after Waterloo. In 1823 it restored by force the Spanish monarchy and made it absolute. It then let it be known that the Holy Alliance was about to help the restored Spanish monarchy to conquer—and punish— the revolted Spanish-American colonies, which had recently made themselves independent States. This determination led to the then Prime Minister of Britain, Can-

liiug*, detaching 1 Britain from the Alliance, with the declaration that, while Recognising that Spain might, if she could, recover her revolted colonies, England would not stand for any intervention by any European Power. Upon hint of this, fortified by the urge of sec ret disnatches of Canning, President Monroe issued his famous proclamation. In this the declaration was prominent, that any European intervention {< in any portion of this hemisphere, for oppressing, or in any way controlling 1 , the South American States,” would be regarded as dangerous to the United States, and unfriendly. Thus. the Monroe protest, after the hint and example of Canning, ended the era of intervention so fatuously estab-

lished by Metternich. The Monroe Doctrine has had the steady support of Britain. A notable instance was on the occasion of the

United States’ order to Louis Naooleon to withdraw his troops from Mexico and the side of the Emperor Maximilian. Another was in the Spanish-American war, when the British Government declared that any European intervention would find the British Fleet in the way. Thus the doctrine lias been a factor in the friendly relations between the two English-speaking races.