Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-13

OF opinion is very curious, but it serves TO
enlighten one hitherto obscure phase in
recent diplomacy. 1t will be remembered
that Messrs. Hurlbut and Fitzpatrick, as
the United States Ministers to Peru and
Chile respectively, quarreled quite fercely
over the meaning of their instructions, one
holding that they justified interference,
the other taking the opposite view. Now
it seems reasonable to conclude that if
these ENJOYS differed SO widely as to the
Interpretation OF the instructions, and if
four New York journals find it equally
impossible to agree upon the matter, there
really must be some antiquities or incon.
sistencies in the documents. And in fact
there are such perplexities For while Mr..
Blaine processes for the most part very
scrupulous neutrality, he certainly at one
place indicates belief that this attitude
may have to be exchanged for much more
decided and peremptory policy. Nothing
else can be derived from the following Ian.
guage, for example: "The Government of
''the United States seeks only to perform
"the Office of friend to both parties in this
unhappy conflict, and will regret to be
compelled to consider how far that feel
ing might be affected, and more active
interposition forced upon it, by any at
tempted complication of this question
"with European policies" This may be
construed to mean that the United States
proposes to act with rigid impartiality so
long as Chile obeys American dictation,
but no longer. It certainly does contem-
plate possible interference with the free
dom of action of Chile, or Peru, or both,
which is incompatible with the profession
of neutrality accompanying this intimation.
We are afraid that the Monroe doctrine
really did carry Mr.. Blaine off his feet in
this matter, and that, perhaps half uncon-
sciously, he did assume an attitude which
would have only been consistent had the
United States formally arrogated the posi-
ton of arbiter to all the South American
I
States. OF course Mr.. Blaine had no more
| right to threaten Chile in this way than
he would have had to interfere with the
Governor General of Canada, nor can the
Monroe doctrine be held to sanction any
such international impertinence. The
most irritating feature of the whole
case, however, is the obvious re-.
Election that Chile had nothing to
fear from the naval power of the
United States, and therefore must have
been more amused than dismayed at Mr..
Blaine's melodramatic hint at "more
"active interposition. Of course the
Chilean Government has known all the
time that the United States was incapable
of biting, however loudly it might bark,
and therefore there was nothing but humili-
alton to be got by any assumption of a
power which we did not possess. Mr..
Blaine might very well have proffered the
good services of his Government in arrang.
ing the terms of peace between the con.
tending countries, and might have pro-
tested strongly against any attempt to ex-
tinguish the Peruvian nationality. But
there the action of the State Department
should have stopped, since that was the
natural limit of our salutary Intervention.
To threaten what all the world knows we
could not perform, was to expose the coun-
try to the ridicule and contempt of every
petty South American Government.
Herein Mr.. Blaine appears to US to have
committed serious blunder, and it is,
owing to the nature of the case, one not
easily repaired.