Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1928 THE PAN-AMERICAN CONFERENCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 18 January 1928, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1928 THE PAN-AMERICAN CONFERENCE

THE principles enunciated by President Coolidge, when addressing .the PanAmerican Conference, ■ would seem to indicate that the States of South'and'Cen-tral-America may rest assured that the great Republic of North America, acting in conformity with the Monroe Doctrine, is tho guardian of their liberties and the protector ot their independence. But that is not the view held by some of the patriots of tho lesser American republics. Indeed, it is not too much to say that no small number of them in no sense reguid the United States as the guardian of their liberties, but rather as inimical to those liberties. We quote from an article written by Signor Felipe Bar : reda, Professor of Pan-American History of San Marcos, at Lima, Peru ; The Monroe Doctrine has been corrupted and distorted in such an extraordinary manner that .both its inter- ' pretation and its application have no connection at all with the policy originally stated by President Monroe. The cause has been the friction and conflict growing oiit of commercial intercourse, and the result has been that, in order to find a line of solution, tho United States Government has made use of the Monroe Doctrine for its own purposes by drawing from it conclusions of the most variable and fantastic char-

acter; The- professor, then •' proceeds to. outline iftjur, concreto: instances.'in. which.the. United Stales, since 1912, havo used the Monroo Doctrine as an oxcuso for interfering v/ith the liberties of co-American republics, including recent high-handed measures in Mexico and Nicaragua, and, as a fifth grievance, he complains of "the fixed attitude of the United States that the definition, interpretation, and application of the Monroe Doctrine are their exclusive concern." In 1912 the United States interfered with the independence of Nicaragua by assuming the right to declare (in cases of, internal political strife) which was tho constitutional party to bo by the naval and military forces of the 'United States. In 1915, tho United States interfered in Haiti, on the score.that that country was not able to maintain an independent and competent Government able to keop order and discharge its international obligations. In 1916, the United States interfered in Santo Domingo, by assuming the, right to intervene in the political government and economic administrate! of a debtor nation in Latin America. Only recently the United States Government, during the. Presidency of Mr Calvin Coolidge, has interfered in Mexico and Nicaragua, because there was prevalent in the United States an opinion that certain political and economic movements in. the two LatinAmerican republics tended to endanger the private interests of citizens of the United States.

In tho face of such glaring instances of the trampling underfoot of Latin-, American independence 'by the United States, President Coolidge, in opening the sixth Pan/American Congress, on the 16th inst., useu his eloquence' for the purpose of "urging nations in the Western Hemisphere to join in the task of assuring all its people the freedom which Columbus bequeathed to them in equal measure," and he appears to have concluded his address by enunciating the .pious hope "that all nations in the (Western) Hemisphere are determined to adjust their differences, not by resort to force, but by the application of tho principles of justice and equity." We do not make any comment. We leave our readers to\ form'tbeir opinion of the difference which exists between the precepts and practice of President Coolidge, in dealing with such States as Nicaragua and Mexico. Pan-Americanism may be a< very fine thing on paper. In practice it is so faulty that it extorts from Professor Barrcda-tho exhortation that "All nations which form the Pan-American Union must adopt the principle of no political interference between themselves: they also must adopt the principle of no military enforcement of agreements or contracts dealing with matters which do not fall within the scope of international law"—expressions which are called forth directly by tho high-handed policy of the United States in dealing with the republics of Latin America.