THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1906. WASHINGTON, AND CUBA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13285, 18 September 1906, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1906. WASHINGTON, AND CUBA.

The masterful letter addressed by President Roosevelt to the Cubf.n Minister at Washington enunciates a policy which will have the unqualified approval of the Anglo-Saxon world, however adversely it may be criticised in other quarters. It definitely assumes for the Washington Government that responsibility for enforcing law and order in Cuba which was morally assumed when the United States guaranteed Cuba independence. During the past few days the West Indian 'Republic has been disturbed by one of those " revolutions" which have become inseparably associated with Central American politics, and the effect of which has been to industrially demoralise and commercially bankrupt the richest part of the world. Because parties disagreed upon a recent Presidential election, Cuba was plunged into the throes of civil war, which threatens to undo all that has been effected by the intervention of the United States against Spain and to throw the country back into the state of hopeless anarchy from which it has emerged under American tutelage. President Rooseveltwho fought in Cuba with the rough riders," whom lie originated, and whose methods have since become part of our colonial military conception—is not the man to allow this if the American people were opposed to it ; and they are evidently opposed to it. He has informed the Cubans that "hostilities must cease immediately," and that " some arrangement must be made for securing the permanent pacification of the country." The condition under which the Cubans retain their independence is that they must show ability to continue in the path of peaceful and orderly progress." Briefly, if they fail to show this ability, their independence will be forfeited and they will, be taken in hand by the United States—and, as the Filipinos have discovered to their amazement, the American's little finger is thicker than the Spaniard's loins. The American Minister for War and the AssistantSecretary of State—most ominous conjunction—have been sent to Havana to restore peace. With ■ American warships and marines at j their bidding and with the strongest j Government in the world behind | them, it will be strange if 'Cuba is j not promptly and emphatically paci- | fied. Thus is the Washington Government doing its duty, as some day it will do its duty whenever .these mongrel States of Latin-Ame-rica fail to fulfil the condition under which any and every civilised government exists. Cuba is more particularly the care of the Washington Governmen!. only because it exists as an ! independent State by virtue of direct and unqualified American intervention. Had it not been for the American fleets and the American armies, before which the Spanish power melted from the Atlantic and the Pacific like snow before the warm wind, Cuba would still have been

misgoverned by the Spanish Crown. When America fought that most righteous war, when she snatched Imperial authority from a country unfit to have it and unable to hold it, she morally pledged herself to secure throughout the forfeited domains of Spain that good government which never yet was seen under Spanish authority.. American doctors and engineers banished yellow fever from the Cuban ports as they are banishing it from "the Panama Isthmus American soldiers and Consuls banished robbery and outrage from their Cuban haunts and made it as safe to work and to hold property in Cuba as in Massachusetts. ■ . To allow- the island to relapse. to look on while rapine and lawlessness '.again, stalked abroad through the rescued land, was not to be thought of by a self-respecting Government. Since neither Spain nor any other. European country was to be allowed to interfere with Cuba it stood to reason that the Washington Government must- do so, in case of necessity. That necessity has arisen, and the Washington Government has accepted the situation. With their, will or against it, the Cubans are to be law-abiding and orderly. . Their independence is not to be a mere excuse for brigandage and anarchy. Thus says President Roosevelt: and wc await the time when he Or his successor will say the same of all Latin-America. For the difference in the relations between the United States and Cuba and between the United States and the rest of Latin-America is really very slight. Cuban independence is due to the actual interference of : the Washington Government with a. European Power; but half-a-dozen other States notoriously owe their independence to the diplomatic interference of the Washington ' Government with European Powers. These Latin-American States, possessed'of enormous territory which they systematically misgovern and without enough military strength to guard their capitals from a boatload of bluejackets, owe their independence wholly and solely to the Monroe Doctrine. For years Germany has been battering with her whole influence at the insuperable wall which the historic American policy presents to all European territorial acquisition upon the American continents; but without any result excepting to force the United States into naval preparations with which Germany can no more compete than can Bulgaria. It is to the American determination to defend the two continents against ' any foreign aggression that Ave really owe this wonderful rise of the second English-speaking Power among the great fighting nations and, incidentally, the appearance on the Pacific of a kindred navy stronger than that of Japan. Without the protection of the Washington Government, it is hard to say which' of the LatinAmerican Republics could maintain their own independence; and it is certain that none of the extremely anarchic ones could do so Left to themselves they would speedily be annexed by some European Power, which would speedily enforce law and order, make life safe and property secure. This is what is wanted to enable their wonderful natural resources to be developed, and for their peoples to live in comfort instead of in wretchedness. As the United States prevents any other nation from assuming this duty she ought to assume it herself. If the action taken by President Roosevelt to maintain peace and law-abiding-ness in Cuba becomes a precedent to be applied to every Latin-Ameri-can Republic which clings to anarchy, the civilised world will have even more to thank him for than it has at present.