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Show NEW MONROE DOCTRINE. (Written for the Irish World by Robert Rob-ert Ellis Thompson.) The efforts of England to work us into a fury at Russia for not evacuating evac-uating Manchuria does not seem to &ave met with much success. Our s?ate department has so far retrieved ts first blunder as to continue its profession pro-fession of faith In Russia's honesty, to the lively disgust of London, and especially of the Times. The tone of English opinion at this moment Is rauch like that of Mr. Kipling's poem, hich he warned England against the Boar." it is lyric, after a low '.ashion. rather than reasonable and wpiornatic. The harder the thing ;!d about Russia the better it Pleases. When They Touch There Must Be p War- a:i th5s is for a reason witn 'eh Americans have no possible oncern. Two big empires have been for,lnR toward each other In Asia r naif a century past, and the time aen they must collide cannot be far w y off. For no two empires can live la peace on this planet Their ambitions must be antagonistic, and when they touch there must be war. Now, England Eng-land has been, the most concerned to avoid war. She thinks she can hold her own on the sea, but she fears she will be no match for Russia on the land, and the final struggle for Asia must be a land battle. As one of her own writers says, she would be as ill placed for such a struggle as would a whale which undertook to fight a bear. "With Africa demanding garrisons, garri-sons, and India always eager to revolt, re-volt, she could not muster a great army to meet Russia anywhere; and Russia could send hundreds of thousands thou-sands to attack any point in the British Brit-ish possessions which could be reached by land. On the western side of India Afghanistan Af-ghanistan offers the only neutral territory ter-ritory between the two empires, but, thanks to the blunders of the party of aggression in India, Afghanistan -as been alienated, and is on the Russian Rus-sian side. The German map makers actually color it as a part of the Russian Rus-sian empire, but this is going too far. In any event it is to Russia and not to England that its mountain passes would be open and safe if the two empires were to come to blows. The Long Arm of the Bear. On the eastern side is China, and England finds the precedent she set in seizing Hong Kong after the opium opi-um war most embarrassing. She now has France in possession of Tonquin, the Germans at "Wei-hai-wei, and the Russians in Manchuria; and she does not know when the long arm of the Bear may stretch southward and come to the frontier she stole in Assam, so that the armies of the two countries of the two empires will be studying each other across a boundary line. It would be very convenient to have America as well as Japan unite with her in obtaining assurance for herself her-self against that hap; but it is none of our business. Even if Russia should continue to hold on to Manchuria, while we might regret the fact, we should have no more right to complain com-plain of it than of England's seizure of Burham. That was just as indefensible inde-fensible and as selfish, with the addition ad-dition of being covered with all sorts of lying pretenses about the misgov-ernment misgov-ernment of the country. Our "Christian" Empires and Our Low Politicians. British diplomacy, represented in these days by the excellent Lord Lansdowne, of whose cleverness and humanity all Irishmen are so proud, has reached the conclusion that the only thing left is to grasp something else in Asia, by way of compensating for Russia's hold on Manchuria. This is a favorite step in modern European diplomacy. It was much liked by the late Napoleon III., who took over Savoy Sa-voy by way of balancing the gains of Piedmont, and who wanted something some-thing by way of compensation when Prussia unified northern Germany in 1S66. "What is there in all this for me?" is a favorite question among the lower sort of American politician; and his morals are exactly on a level with those of the "Christian" empires of the old world. What is England to get out of this Chinese muddle, since Germany, France and Russia ahve all made something out of it? A New Monroe Doctrine. So England promulgates what the London newspapers call "a new Monroe Mon-roe Doctrine," about the Persian gulf. It is that England "should regard the establishment of a naval base of fortified forti-fied fort (sic) in the Persian gulf by any other power as a very grave menace men-ace to British interests, and should certainly resist it with all the means at her disposal." And the authority of Captain Mahan is invoked by London Lon-don newsmongers for this step of aggression ag-gression on the rights of the powers generally, with the evident idea that what that American authority on naval na-val matters says will have great weight in America. Americans Regarded as England's "Pals" in Her Robber Course. Both names Monroe and Mahan are indications of the purpose of the people to enlist us in their Asiatic quarrels, if that be possible. Since we went into the imperialistic business busi-ness of plunder they have been counting count-ing on us as their "pals" in any little enterprise they have on hand for international in-ternational housebreaking. They know it would help the continent to swallow the new declaration if we were to declare for its seasonableness and its justice. As to Captain Mahan, it is not necessary to say much. He is so extravagant an imperialist, and so unlimited an Anglo-maniac, that any opinion he expresses on such subjects sub-jects is at once discounted by all sensible people. He represents no class in America, except, perhaps, the naval officer eager for a chance to use the guns. Monroe is another matter. When James Munroe, at the instigation of John Quincy Adams, uttered that famous fa-mous doctrine, it was with the express ex-press purpose to keep the country out o all entanglement with English policies poli-cies on either side of the Atlantic. He declined to unite with England in any statement on a common policy, as though he recognized her equal right to control the affairs of the western continent Nobody is getting further away from Adams and Monroe than are they who want us to act as though England had any greater claim on us than any other power. "Blood Is thicker than water" was a saying which had no currency at Washington in 1823, for the very ruins of the national na-tional capitol, still black before men's eyes, told them how little the claim of blood availed to check English insolence in-solence and aggression, at a . time when the American people were still of English blood.- No Selfishness in Monroe Doctrine. The contrast of the Monroe Doctrine Doc-trine and the Lansdowne Doctrine is instructive, when we look at the latter lat-ter more closely. The former was a purely unselfish step for the protection protec-tion of the young republics of this continent It neither asked nor claimed anything for the country which took the risk of uttering it It left those republics at perfect liberty to arrange their affairs, including their commercial relations, as they pleased; and they have done so, for the most part, for England's benefit, and to our injury. It was such a declaration dec-laration as no modern imperialist would think of making, unless he first saddled it with every kind of demand de-mand for exclusive terms in trade, the granting of coaling stations and the right of interference whenever we judged the protected countries disorderly. disor-derly. But of all these things there is not a word in the great declaration of 1823, the most magnanimous act in the diplomatic history of the modern world. The Lansdowne Doctrine. The Lansdowne Doctrine compares with that as does the fatwitted and unfeeling Irish landlord compare with the second of the Adamses and the greatest. The Lansdowne Doctrine is simply a declaration that the interests inter-ests of England in the Persian gulf warrant her in trying to keep every other country from its shores. The especial reason for putting it forward at tnis time is that a railroad is about to be constructed to Bagdad, chiefly by Gerraa ncapital and under German auspices. England wants no such railroad, just as she wanted no Suez canal. She wanted no canal because that put every country along the Mediterranean Med-iterranean nearer to the east than she was, and thus destroyed her monopoly mo-nopoly of Asiatic trade. She wants no railroad, because that will make her control of the canal worth less. But Germany has been too clever with the sultan, organizing and drilling drill-ing his armies, and making him feel that Berlin can do more for him than any other capital in Europe. So the Germans have got the right to build the railroad to Bagdad, which means a quicker and easier access to India Dy ships from that point down the Persian gulf than by the long and sweltering route down the Red sea. So everybody, and Germany especially, especial-ly, is warned not to try to effect any occupation of that coast England's Ridiculous Excuse. The excuse is that England spent money and men in opening that gulf to commerce, and that this gives her rights. This is an exact parallel to the reason given by Russia for retaining retain-ing a kind of hold on Manchuria, even a-.ter the evacuation of the province, through the concessions she asks from China. She, too, has spent money and men in making Manchuria a" comparatively orderly place and in opening its commerce to the world, and especially to America. London has no words strong enough to express ex-press its contempt of that claim as made by Russia, but applauds it when put forward in behalf of "British interests." in-terests." But England's outlay of men and money in its wars of trade and aggression ag-gression on Persia have nothing to do with the western side of the gulf, which belongs to the Turkish empire; and nothing to do with its upper waters wa-ters below Bagdad, which also is Turkish territory. And now that Russia Rus-sia has a mortgage on Persia it does not seem that the eastern coast is much under British control. In fact, as any but a fatwitted diplomatist must see, the only effect of the declaration decla-ration is to exhibit to the world the nervous condition of England's rulers, especially as to everything that concerns con-cerns the Indian empire. The Monroe Doctrine was an expression of growing grow-ing strength and confidence in a young country. The Lansdowne Doctrine Doc-trine is an expression of timidity and weakness in a country "which has seen better days. ROBT. ELLIS THOMPSON. |