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though Latin-American States, for reasons best known to themselves, remain members of the League, it is certain that, apart from the reservation under Article XXI of the Covenant, the august assembly at Geneva would be quite unable to protect them against the incursions of the giant Republic. It is easy to imagine what would happen were any attempt made to apply the economic boycott prescribed under Article XVI to a peccant United States !

The developments of American imperialism, indeed, especially in recent times, well illustrate the complexity of the problem which the League of Nations is called upon to solve and, it may be added, the impossibility of its solution. These developments have not been the outcome of a deliberate policy consistently pursued, nor of any conscious desire of the American nation to dominate other peoples. They have simply resulted, as the authors of " Dollar Diplomacy" point out, from the growth of the United States in population and wealth, and the consequent economic pressure to expand; and the character of this expansion has varied at different times in accordance with the nature of the pressure. During the earlier half of the last century it was the demand of a growing population for more and richer land that led to the policy of territorial expansion, whether by purchase or conquest. After the Civil War the industrial development of the north brought a change of policy, and the efforts of American diplomacy were presently directed to securing foreign markets for the surplus products of American factories. The authors of "Dollar Diplomacy " note, as a significant fact which has been overlooked, that it was precisely in 1878, "when the Congress of Berlin marked the entrance of Europe on the path of modern economic imperialism," that the United States laid the foundation stone of her overseas empire by securing from the ruler of Samoa the right to use the harbour of Pagopago as a naval station. The consequent international trouble, it will be remembered, was settled in 1889 by the General Act of Berlin, which established a joint protectorate of Great Britain, the United States and Germany over the Samoan Islands.

The Samoan episode was a minor event in a tremendous imperialist movement which was beginning to take shape in the United States. While the bulk of American industries were still absorbed in exploiting the domestic field, others, such as the sugar interests, were beginning to spread out to Cuba, Porto Rico and Hawaii. It was this fact that produced a change in American diplomacy . . . it now assumed the

rôle of assisting American investments in foreign, and particularly tropical, countries.*

Though the United States had from the first cast eyes on Cuba, it was the interests of American investors in the island that led,, in 1898, to the war with Spain, and so to the emergence of the United States as an Imperial Power, faced for the first time with the problem of colonial administration. The Philippines, Porto Rico and Guam were now American possessions, obtained by conquest and governed without their consent. Hawaii had been obtained by fomenting a revolution.

Having embarked on a policy of imperial expansion the United States developed a series of policies in the Far East and in Latin America, where the chief interests of its ever-growing foreign trade and investment lay, which in essence was the European policy of "spheres of influence" and protectorates.

The "independence" given to Cuba was but intended to soothe the troubled conscience of the American public; for, by the "Platt Amendment," passed by Congress on March 2, 1901, "Cuba was practically made a protectorate of the United States." And so the process continued till in 1917, with the purchase from Denmark of the Virgin Islands, the United States gained complete control of the Caribbean Sea," the strategic key to the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific," and transformed now into a great centre for American commerce and investment.

The "economic imperialism" of the United States, thus in evidence before the war, received an immense impulse as its out

come.

The vast accumulations of capital derived from war profits have sought an outlet in every quarter of the globe, and have everywhere created what the authors of "Dollar Diplomacy" call American spheres of influence.

This has been notably the case in the Far East, where the Philippines remain as the centre of American commercial and financial expansion. It is in this quarter indeed that American imperialism wears its most ominous aspect. It is disconcerting to read of" America's openly declared aim of achieving ascendancy in the Pacific which has been rigorously pursued by the inseparable combination of finance and diplomacy," and of " the challenge to Japanese imperial plans " by "the pressure brought by the Morgan group and the State Department" on Japan to withdraw her claims to Shantung, thus depriving her of an

"Dollar Diplomacy," p. 246.

important naval base. It will be, above all, disconcerting to ensuers of the ideal of perpetual peace to learn that the outcome of the Washington Arms Conference of 1922, which was supposed to be a triumph for peace, was in reality a great triumph for American finance and diplomacy" and "openly marked the emergence of the United States as a dominant Far Eastern Power."

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It is the "inseparable combination of finance and diplomacy in the later developments of American imperialism which has led Messrs. Nearing and Freeman to give to their study of it the title "Dollar Diplomacy." It is in this respect, indeed, that American imperialistic policy differs from British-and for the worse. It would, of course, be too much to say that British policy is never influenced by the great financial interests, but there is quite certainly no such intimate alliance between the Foreign Office and these interests as in the case of the State Department at Washington. The British Government, of course, undertakes to protect the legitimate interests of its nationals abroad; but it does not undertake to push those interests, still less to act as "business solicitor." The diplomatic activity of the United States, on the other hand, has of late years largely consisted in bringing pressure to bear on foreign States in favour of this or that financial group, while American diplomatists and even American naval men have been called into the service as commercial and financial agents. It in no wise differs from the policy of Imperial Germany before the

war.

If the authors of " Dollar Diplomacy" correctly describe the spirit and methods of American imperialism and they support their conclusions with plentiful proofs-it is not surprising that the Latin-American nations in particular should feel alarmed. "The process of acquiring interests outside the United States,' they say," begins with the setting-up of trading ventures and other enterprises which imply no control over the political life of the country in which they are established. The process ends with complete political domination over the outlying territory."†

*" During and following the war the State Department worked in the closest co-operation with American finance to obtain concessions in foreign countries." (" Dollar Diplomacy," p. 273.)

(p. 195.) The opportunities of Germany in this respect were more limited. But the series of treaties establishing an economic Central Europe, signed just before the Armistice, and notably that with Poland, contained provisions which would have ultimately implied the political domination of Prussianized Germany.

It is in the competition for the control of the world's oil supplies that the methods of American diplomacy have been most clearly revealed in recent years. Nor is this surprising. As one oil magnate has declared:

The country which dominates by means of oil will command at the same time the commerce of the world. Armies, navies, money-even entire populations-will count as nothing against the lack of oil. It is natural, then, that the United States-threatened with the exhaustion of her native oil supplies-should look abroad for future provision. But, while justifying this foresight, it is permissible to call attention to the singular contradiction between profession and practice displayed by the American Government during the controversies which have arisen out of this question. The part played by the oil interests in the Mexican imbroglio of 1913 has already been mentioned. The sequel, however, was even more illuminating. President Wilson had based his "economic Monroe Doctrine" on the loftiest principles: the Latin-Americans must cease to rely on foreign assistance, so as to develop the qualities of self-reliance which alone can build up a sterling national character; yet in 1916, when President Carranza, the United States protégé, proposed to introduce a law establishing effective Government control over the Mexican oil-fields, the Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, sent him a sharp warning not to interfere with American rights secured under previous concessions.

Yet more. At the very time when President Wilson was protesting the disinterestedness of the United States in the proclamation of his new policy, his Government was throwing all its weight on the side of the Standard Oil Company in its contest with the Cowdray group for the right to exploit the oil-fields of Colombia and Ecuador. Since the British Government, very properly, followed its usual policy of disinterestedness in this matter, the two Latin-American States-for all their fear and dislike of Yanqui penetration-had no choice but to hand over the monopoly of their oil resources to the North Americans.*

In view of this proceeding, and the doctrine on which it was

*British business men in South America told me that the English tradition of not bringing diplomatic pressure to bear in purely business matters was of great service to them, as the Latin-Americans naturally prefer dealing with those who do business with them without any imperialistic threat in the background.-W.A.P.

based, the subsequent claims of the American Government in other parts of the world seem somewhat amazing. It is impossible here even to outline the history of the diplomatic contest for the control of the world's oil resources which followed the war. Suffice it to say, that certain American groups had obtained concessions in the Near East-e.g., the Chester concession granted by the Ottoman Government in 1912, and that given to the Standard Oil Company in Palestine and that these came into conflict with British interests secured under the treaties. So far as the attitude of the American Government is concerned, the authors of " Dollar Diplomacy " put the matter succinctly: "The policy of the open door, which had been disregarded in keeping British oil interests out of Colombia in 1913, was invoked on behalf of American oil interests in 1920." In demanding the admission of the Standard Oil Company to the oil-fields of Mesopotamia, the State Department, as usual, adopted a lofty tone. The American public, it appears, was shocked by the fact that His Majesty's Government "had given advantages to British oil interests which were not accorded to American companies; and further, that Great Britain had been preparing quietly for exclusive control of the oil resources in this region." The United States, it was claimed, had "a right to share in any discussions relating to the status of such concessions, not only because of existing vested rights of American citizens, but also because the equitable treatment of such concessions is essential to the initiation and application of the general principles in which the United States Government is interested."

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Of these principles the most important was that of the Open Door, first formulated at the close of the nineteenth century, as a counterblast to the division of China into spheres of influence, and consecrated in 1917 by its inclusion in President Wilson's Fourteen Points. It was for this principle that the " unofficial representative of the United States at the Lausanne conferences contended, and with success, for the controversy was settled by the Standard Oil Company being allowed to take part in the Turkish petroleum combine.

Other things being equal, the American attitude in this matter would have been unimpeachable; for none would dispute the right of the United States to intervene for the purpose of protecting the vested interests of its citizens abroad, and the recognition of

VOL. 245. NO. 499.

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