THE AMERICAN ULTIMATUM

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15098, 14 September 1912, Page 6

THE AMERICAN ULTIMATUM

In calling upon the ; Mexican president to protect the lives and property of American citizens throughout Mexico or to resign within thirty days, the Washington Government is acting well within accepted international- rights/ but ■ is nevertheless creating a serious international situation. Having taken this step, Mr. Taft cannot avoid without serious loss of national prestige the duty of enforcing order in Mexico should President Madero be unable to assert authority. This assertion of Mexican authority is more than unlikely for the country is torn by the conflict of rival factions, among whom. President Madero's decrees are so much waste paper. The belief held in Washing-

ton that intervention is now inevitI able is based upon the conviction of Mexican incapacity and American -necessity. . For the United States to intervene, however, is not to end but to ' open the real difficulty. Intervention to be effective means the marching over the border of a military force strong enough to suppress disorder, and when a foreign army of occupation enters a country there is never any certainty when it will withdraw. Withdrawal is all the more uncertain when behind the army of occupation is a strong desire to make occupation permanent. However occupation may be cloaked its effect in a barbaric land is always the same. Great interests become established under the shield of an alien law and order, until it finally becomes impossible to abandon them to the inevitable destruction which would follow the revival of native anarchy and lawlessness. The Mexicans are incapable of civilised self-government] their country is being developed by foreign capita], largely American, and their industries organised by foreigners, also largely American. The world is probably watching the gradual absorption of Mexico by the United States, and while the civilised world may accept the process as much the least of two evils, the Latin-Ameri-can States cannot be expected to be in any way sympathetic. They will only, see a piratical seizure of a weak State by its powerful neighbour, and will imagine it the first stage of an American march to Panama. The effect upon the relations of the United States and the Latin-Ameri-can States may well be profound. The Washington Government is already feared and distrusted from the Mexican frontier to Cape Horn, and any practical evidence that fear and distrust are well founded may set a tide of resentment flowing strongly against American trade and influence. It is not inconceivable that Latin-America may call in the Goths and give footing to the Germans as the price of defence, against the United States. Whether the Monroe Doctrine could be upheld against Germany and Latin-Ameri-can allies is a moot problem, but one not wholly disconnected with American " intervention" in Mexico.