THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 11341, 3 May 1912, Page 5

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

REVISION ADVOCATED.

TO RESTRAIN JAPAN'S COMMERCE.

Press Association—Electric Tclcj;i-ph—Copy t.ght.

Reooivod Friday, 8.5, a.m

WASHINGTON, Thursday.

Senators Lodge and Bacon, and other members of tho Somite Foreign Affairs Committee, aro of opinion that tho Monroe Doctrino ought to be revised iv order to prevent Japanese commercial interests soouring control of tho territory iv Magdaleua Bay. The mom hers of tho committee declare that tho possession of such a strategic position, oven by purely commercial interests, constitutes a certain menace to the safety of the United States.

Tlie Monroe Doctrine, which was introduced in tho United States Senate in ISxiil by Mr Jas. Monroe, President of America, embodies the principle, "in which tho rights and interests of tho United States are involved, that the American continents are honcetortli not to bo considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European power. . . With tho existing colonies or dependencies ot any European Power wo nave not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with tho governments who havo declared their independence aud maintained it and whose independence we have acknowledged we could not view any interposition for the purposo of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as tho manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States. "Tho Monroe Doctrine, while not allowing any power to annex territory on tho American continent also prohibits the States from forming any colony outsido American waters. Thus, while the Doctrine is the law of the country, Japan can colonise territory in Magdaleua Bay and America is forced to look on. It might here be moutioned that despite the existence of the Monroe Doctrine, at. the close of the Spanish-American war tlie United States seized Cuba and the Phillipine Islands and converted them into American colonies.