Evening Post. TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1931. "DOLLAR DIPLOMACY"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 93, 21 April 1931, Page 8

Evening Post. TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 1931. "DOLLAR DIPLOMACY"

The United Slates Government is taking a step regarding Nicaragua which has long appeared to be overdue, and it is in accordance with the perversity of human affairs that many of those who have for years complained that it was delayed too long are now thinking it might have been advantageously delayed a little longer. A further illustration of this perversity is supplied to-day by the news which shows that the very same kind of responsibilities which the Americans undertook, perhaps too lightly, in Nicaragua nearly twenty years ago, and from which they are now anxious to withdraw, may be forced upon them in an adjoining State through no fault of their own. What may be the origin of the "wellorganised revolution" which has broken out along the Atlantic coast of Spanish Honduras is not reported, but speculation can hardly go far wrong. In a country, of which revolution may be classed with bananas and coffee among its principal products, the present outbreak is less in need of explanation than the fact that it did. not occur months ago. With the possible exception of Venezuela, which has been sustained by the good prices of its large exports of petrol, all these Latin Republics of Central and South America have suffered heavily from the world-wide slump, and in most of them the popular discontent has taken the form of revolution. Honduras was perhaps the least likely of them all lo resist this general tendency., , . , One might almost infer from Mr. Wallace Thompson's account of the country in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" that revolution is endemic in Spanish Honduras. Ilonduras has been a continual sufferer from revolutions and war, ho writes, one explanation being that, lying as it does between Guatemala, Salvador, and Nicaragua, all fairly well balanced against one another, Honduras has been in a position to throw the balance to any of the contending nations, and thus been subject to intriguo from all three sides. Each ruler of a neighbouring country, if he had designs on another, sought to put one of his puppets into power as President of Honduras, either by intrigue or by revolution, a practice hardly conducive to peace. • During the twenty years from 1883 onwards rulers and revolutions' followed one another in such quick succession lhat Mr. Thompson makes no attempt lo count them, but in 1903 the dictator of Nicaragua interfered in support of his own candidate for the presidency of Honduras, and a war followed between the two countries which the intervention of American marines was required to stop. In 1922, 1923, and 1924 revolutionary troubles again demanded the attention of the United States, but with the aid of marines and bluejackets, who were twice landed but promptly withdrawn, and afterwards of a diplomatic representative President Coolidge put things right without any continuing commitment. Since that last settlement Honduras has evidently had relative calm, for we are told that ihe revolution now proceeding appears to be the most comprehensive which has broken out since 1924, and is fast gaining headway. Thus it is that at the very moment when the United States Government has informed its Legation in Nicaragua that this Government cannot undertake the general protection of Americans there, it is called upon to render Honduras similar service lo that which it first rendered to Nicaragua in 1912 with the consequences that it now desires to terminate. Though, as we have suggested, the normal turbulence of the people and the economic distress arising from the low prices of their products are a quite sufficient combination, to account for the exceptionally promising revolution in Honduras, it is highly probable that the successes of Sandino, and what his emissaries may plausibly have represented as his defeat of the Americans, have been contributing causes. The success of the revolution in Spain, which nearer home is threatening serious international trouble at Tangier, may also be contributing its quota. Whatever the precise diagnosis may be, the outbreak in Honduras has come at a most inopportune time for the United States. President Hoover seems lo have struck once more the bad luck which has so often dogged his steps even when he is obviously taking, the right road. And by a remarkable coincidence the same two States which have combined to embarrass his determination' lo reverse an unsound policy were also closely associated in its

origin. In "The Principles of American Diplomacy," Dr. John Basselt Moore, for many years a Judge of the World Court at the Hague, refers to the last point as follows:— January 10th, 1911, Mr. Kiiox signed a loan convention with Honduras, for tho purpose of rehabilitating the national finances. Tho Senate of the United States failed to ratify, it. A similar fato awaited a treaty concluded with Nicaragua, 6th June, 1911, which contemplated a loan by American bankors, and followed tho lilies of the Dominican receivership. These efforts were popularly assailed as "dollar diplomacy." Tho aid of American bankers was indeed to a certain extent actually obtained. In August, 1912, in the midst of disorders, the United States, on tho request of the Nicaraguan President, landed marines, explaining that it did so for the defence of its Legation, and tho protection of American lifo arid property under President Zolaya could not. be restored. The marines htffl several encounters with revolutionists, and a detachment remained at tho capital. The policy here indicated of protecting and encouraging American investments abroad had been foreshadowed by President Taft in his inaugural address of the 4th March, 1909, and appears to have been first applied some two months later, in China. But Judge Moore's statement seems to imply that the term "dollar diplomacy" first attained popular currency in the controversies over the application of this policy to Honduras and Nicaragua. Regarding Honduras the veto of the Senate appears to have been effective, but in Nicaragua the policy was carried out witli i unexpected and undesired results. In 1912 Mr. Knox, who, as President T'aft's Secretary of State, was the leading exponent of this policy/ referred to its operation as follows:— I During the course of a year it is many times necessary for the United States to send forces to the ports of J some of the Central American Republics in ordoi- to afford protection to foreign lifo and property. This is done at an enormous expense, an informal estimate from some of the naval officers showing that the annual, cost to this Government amounts to over 1,000,000 dollars. But with these sanctions "dollar diplomacy" necessarily degenerated into "bullet diplomacy," and the American marines who, as Judge Moore says, were landed in Nicaragua at the request of its President in August, 1912, remained there till August, 1925. They were then withdrawn, but after the lapse of a little more than a year the request was renewed, and another large force was sent. It stayed there long enough to enable the Nicaraguans to enjoy an infinitely more peaceful election than die people of Chicago were able to have about.the same time, but the withdrawal which was to have followed immediately afterwards was postponed owing to the disturbed conditions of the country. And now that the evacuation of which everybody appears1 to approve in principle is beginning, it is obvious that the immediate result may be to increase these troubles and to create others.