THE MONROE DOCTRINE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 21, 24 July 1940, Page 9

THE MONROE DOCTRINE

OPINIONS STATED

GERMANY THREATENS DANGER

(By Clipper Mail, from "The Post's" Representative.

NEW YORK, July 12.

The relations between the United States and Canada, binder the Monroe Doctrine, are being subjected to close scrutiny by American writers, especially those who favour isolation and neutrality. Since the defection of France, the controversy has grown more general. Many questions are being asked. What will be the effect on the United States if Canada is threatened or attacked by Germany? To what degree is the United States pledged to Canada's defence, apart from President Roosevelt's statement, three years ago, that Americans would not stand idly by in the event of an attack on their northern neighbour?

The representative of the Hearst Press at Washington quoted the second clause of the Articles of Federation drawn up 160 years ago, which gave Canada authority to enter the Union as a member whenever it chose, without the necessity of a plebiscite by the States. The representative of the "New York Times" at Ottawa, in a book, "Canada, America's Problem," declared that Canada made isolation impossible and neutrality a fiction for the United States.

President Roosevelt, by his action in sending three cruisers recently to South American waters—two to Brazil and Uruguay, and the third and latest, last week, to Chile—has made it clear that he regards the Monroe Doctrine in the light of international law, although it has never been adopted by Congress or by any Pan-American Convention until it was formally endorsed in the recent Declaration of Panama. President Theodore Koosevelt's "Corollary" to the Doctrine— that misconduct or disruption in certain Latin-American States would force the United States to intervene, in order to prevent European Powers from doing so—inaugurated an era of distrust which is only now being erased by the "Good Neighbour" policy of the present incumbent at the White House.

NAZIS STRONG IN KEY POSITIONS.

The key points of German infiltration in Latin America at the moment are Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. The recent Uruguayan investigation proved conclusively that democracy throughout South America was being seriously threatened by Nazi units, operating under direct orders from Germany and under close supervision by the German Legations in each of the ten South American republics. Governments are already taking steps to deal with these units, known as the "fifth column." They have already achieved alarming penetration in key positions in Governments, armies, navies, industries, communications, schools, universities, and public service corporations.

Well-informed observers are convinced that, if the South American countries are to be saved from Nazi economic domination, the United States must find some way of buying from them on a basis sufficiently substantial to free them from the temptations of barter trade. The policy adopted before and during the world depression, of granting huge loans to enable them to continue buying in the United States, while selling in Europe, was a failure, and reacted against harmonious relations. In some influential quarters it is urged that the United States should suspend its tariff on all imports from Latin America, except cereals, fruits, fats, meat, and dairy products for the duration of the war. There is already an immense body of public opinion in favour of a PanAmerican Customs Union.