The Venezuelan Trouble.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 51, 18 December 1902, Page 18

The Venezuelan Trouble.

Time was when the States of South America could indulge in little revolutions on their own account without the interference of any one. Tragic enough they were in their own way, but not on a scale large enough to attract outside attention. Consequently the ups and the downs, the ins and the outs have furnished material only for the story teller, and not for the historian. The States have copied modern institutions and attempted to graft them on to a people only half civilised, and more prone to give a hand and a blow — preferably a blow first— than to settle political differences in the manner usual to civilised countries and among a less impulsive people. But that has all changed. The States have entered upon the world's stage, though less by their own volition than by the march of events, which make the organisation of the world so sensitive that an agitation at any one point is reported at all centres. Hence it ia that a revolution in any of these States, which a few years ago would have been only a small speck on the horizon, may develop into a thunder cloud of portentous dimensions, which may break at any moment and cause widespread inundation. At the present moment President Castro is not only engaged in the task of maintaining his own precarious ascendancy, but is playing off against each other the three powerful nations of America, Germany, and Britain. The first of these ia solicitous for the security of Central America, and the maintenance of the shreds of the Monroe doctrine^ Germany is bristling with indignation and offended dignity, and Britain is nervous about the maintenance of the treaty rights and the observance of the Schomburg boundary, having Guiana to guard. But it is absurd to think that war will arise from the present complications. TVhat will probably happen is that arbitration will be called in and Venezuela punished for having had the termerity to lay violent hands on the foreign consuls. Ihe Venezuelans are bound hand and > foot to the foreign creditors, chief among whom ia Britain, and where monetary interests are at stake peaceful counsels are sure to prevail. The whole population of Venezuela cannot exceed 2% millions. It is neither a large nor a fertile country. Its history dates from the earliest days of Spanish conquest. That it should provoke an international war is beyond the reach of the wildest apprehensions.