The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 1927. THE NEW IMPERIALISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 185, 8 August 1927, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 1927. THE NEW IMPERIALISM.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the vrrong that needs resistance, For the future in the And the good that tee can do.

Anion- tho many explanations suggested tor the American attitude at the Geneva (-ontcronce the comment offered by the Paris 'Momnal" veil deserves a little serious consideration. To account for the resolute refusal ot the American delegates to accept any sort of compromise that might result in a reduction ot their naval strength, the "Journal" reminds us that the Americans have long since adopted an Imperialist policy, and that they need a strong navy to back it up. We have heard a great deal from tho Americans about the Monroe Doctrine in recent years. But though the appeal to this principle baa been quite successful in preventing the European Powers from intervening in the Western hemisphere, the Americans have apparently reserved to themselves the right to interfere when they please in the affairs of their neighbours either in their own continent or outside it.

As the "Journal" correctly points out, the first manifestations of this new Imperialist tendency date back about thirty years to the Spanish-American war. Whatever may have been the merits of the dispute between Spain and the United States, the net result of the conflict was that the Americans, while exercising a vague sort of protectorate over Cuba, secured the Philippine Islands as a colonial dependency. Having thus obtained a foothold in the Far East, they have used this as a basis for a scheme of naval expansion in the Pacific, and it has been largely the foundation of their post-war policy in relation to •Japan. Since the Spanish-American war it has not been possible to describe the United •States as a Power without oversea dependencies, nor has it been possible to deny that the policy by which this extension of American authority was secured has been Imperialist in the self-assertive or aggressive sense of the term. But the Imperialistic quality of American public policy has been even more strongly marked in the dealings of the United States Government with the Latin republics of Central and South America.

The relations of America with Panama, Mexico, and Nicaragua during the past thirty years have been based largely on material and financial considerations. Panama was recognised as an independent republic and defended against her former ruler, Colombia, simply in order that the American Government might make an easy bargain over the Canal zone. The refusal of Washington to recognise certain claimants for the Presidency of Mexico and its decision to acknowledge others were actuated clearly by a desire to promote or protect American commercial interests. And now the direct intervention of the United States in the Nicaraguan civil war may be traced to the same source. Mr. Scott Xearing is not a wholly unprejudiced witness, and the evidence compiled in his "Dollar Diplomacy," a sweeping indictment of American foreign policy, may be somewhat biased. But the facts to which we have referred reveal plainly enough the reasons for the fear of the "the Colossus of the North" so constantly displayed by the Latin American republics, and help to explain the anxiety of the Americans to maintain their navy at the highest practicable level of efficiency and strength.