Power in accord with treaties made with every country on the face of the globe. She will with pleasure avoid entanglements and intermeddlings and unlawful encroachments, whatever the continent or the country, but will not forego her right to hold relations with Europe or Asia, to continue to trade with them and carry on educational and religious work, or to do what these countries, in exercise of their sovereign powers, have stipulated may or must be done. 5. A new and logical expansion of the Monroe Doctrine by the United States is that of joint coöperation with strong governments like Argentine, Brazil and Chile, called the "A. B. C." countries, in any necessary interference in turbulent countries, like Mexico and some Central America States. Even with this joint action, there is a joint determination to annex no territory. This is a policy, as President Wilson has stated it, to promote "the most cordial understanding and coöperation between the peoples and leaders of America." This joint mediation policy-call it Monroe Doctrine or not has been advocated by ex-President Roosevelt and has for the first time been put to the test by President Wilson in relation to the revolutionary condition of Mexico. Such a willingness to cooperate with other great American Republics has done more than anything else to dispel criticism and suspicion. Such an application of an imitation Monroe Doctrine presents fewer difficulties to Japanese aspirations. It would have meant coöperation between Japan and China in establishing an orderly Korean Government in Korea. It means coöperation between Japan and Great Britain in British possessions, if Britain requests the help. It means coöperation between China and Japan in suppressing revolutions in China, as China shall so request and when she shall so request. As a beginning, Japan can put a check to Chinese revolutionary plots engineered from Japan. This "joint mediation" does not mean Japanese control of the Chinese police and military administrations in even Manchuria, any more than it would mean the intrusion of the United States into the police systems of Argentine or Brazil. What "joint mediation" is, requires a little more careful study on the part of Japanese statesmen, just as does the whole Monroe Doctrine. 6. While the two essential and two subsidiary principles as above stated of the Monroe Doctrine are worthy of imitation by Japan, one misconception of the Doctrine, needing to be shunned, strikes the Japanese with greater force; and that is, that by the Monroe Doctrine the United States aims to dictate to all other republics on the American continent, and reserves for herself the right of annexing other people's territory. In other words, the Monroe Doctrine is made to mean that interference in the independent sovereignty of any state, and intervention in affairs of the American continent, are not permissible for European Powers, but are legitimate for the United States. The President of the Argentine Republic has stated the case in one compact clause: "North American domination instead of European domination." This misconception, this suspicion, has existed in the minds of many citizens of other American republics. It is without substantial foundation. As Professor Callahan has said, "Americans, who logically in their early history established their boundaries on the gulf, for a half century have not been inclined to encroach upon the territories of their neighbors." And again: "It is true that much LatinAmerican suspicion of American territorial designs was justified in the decade before the American civil war, when under the influence of American leaders of the southern states, the shibboleth of 'Manifest Destiny' was added to the doctrine of national security." But this idea has been a long time dead. Of late years the most able of American statesmen have undertaken in many ways to remove this suspicion, not so much raised by acts of the United States as by acts of others. It has been to the great interest of Europe to foster this suspicion. In 1906 President Roosevelt in a message to Congress used these words: "An idea had become prevalent that our assertion of the Monroe Doctrine implied or carried with it an assumption of superiority and of a right to exercise some kind of protectorate over the countries to whose territory that Doctrine applies. Nothing could be farther from the truth." Hon. Elihu Root, who made a special visit to South America for removing such suspicions and misconceptions, has written as follows: A false conception of what the Monroe Doctrine is, of what it demands and what it justifies, of its scope and of its limits, has invaded the public press and affected public opinion within the past few years. Grandiose schemes of national expansion invoke the Monroe Doctrine. Thoughtless people who see no difference between lawful right and physical power assume that the Monroe Doctrine is a warrant for interference in the internal affairs of all weaker nations in the New World. Against this supposititious doctrine many protests both in the United States and in South America have been made, and justly made. To the real Monroe Doctrine these protests have no application. President Wilson in a speech delivered at Mobile, October 27, 1913, stated the matter in positive terms: "I want to take this occasion to say that the United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by conquest." This false conception of the Monroe Doctrine is what Japan gladly seizes for application to China and all Eastern Asia. She resents any more interference from European and American Powers, and on the basis of a popular and accredited doctrine in the States across the Pacific, argues herself into believing that she has the right to intrude, interfere, control and dominate in the affairs and independent sovereignty of Eastern Asia. The present attempt to establish a hegemony in China can find no parallel in the Monroe Doctrine. What Japan during the last twenty years did, after war with China and Russia, in the way of acquiring territory more than matches what the United States has done during a period of ninety years. Her acquisitions are sufficient. Let her now follow Presidents Roosevelt and Wilson, and Secretaries Root and Bryan and show beyond a doubt that she will not injure or destroy the sovereignty and independence of China, which in treaty she has solemnly agreed to. As the United States has earnestly tried to remove all suspicion of her actions, whether belonging to the Monroe Doctrine or not, so the duty which lies before Japan is to overcome the suspicions which her varied actions and her late twenty-one demands have most effectually stirred into being. 7. A second misconception of the Monroe Doctrine is that non-interference, with no more territorial aggrandizement, by European Powers on the American continents, means that they shall not undertake any commercial or industrial development in any of these countries. Even a cursory glance at trade statistics is enough to explode this fallacy. Each sovereign state regulates its own trade on the basis of equal opportunity to business men of all nations. Japan is as free as Europe to trade in both North and South America. Similarly in all parts of China, from Manchuria to Tibet, should be the independent right to trade with any and with all, with no more of these foreign-devised spheres of interest or spheres of influence, to China's aggravation and peril. Mr. J. O. P. Bland helps Japan out by asking this question: "Could America claim the right to an active part in the affairs of Eastern Asia, while bound by the traditional policy of the Monroe Doctrine?" I would certainly say she has the right, so far as trade and industry are concerned, and this, too, within all the domains of the Chinese Republic. This idea has already been considered u d'er another aspect of the general question. As to preserving the independence and integrity of China, there is no responsibility resting on the United States through application of Japan's adopted Monroe Doctrine; but there is a responsibility resting on the United States, Great Britain, France and Russia, because of agreements or understandings made with them by Japan. It is not a law, not a doctrine or a policy, which binds these five Powers, European, American and Asiatic. For Japan to attempt in the slightest degree to weaken |