The San Francisco call., 1895-12-24
CANNING AND THE MONROE DOC.
TRINE.

Englands connection with the formulation
OF the Monroe doctrine is thus explained oy
the st. Louis Globe-Democrat: George Can
ming, the British Foreign Secretary, told Rich
ard Rush. the American Minister in London,
in August 1928, that the Holy Alliance had
designs on the freedom of the South and Cen
tral American States which had recently
gained their independence Of Spain, and pro-
posed that the United States should cooperate
with England in defeating this purpose
Rush informed the Secretary of State, John
Quincy Adams, of Canning's revelations and
proposition, and Adams laid them before Presi-
dent Monroe. Wisely declining the ''entan-
Cling alliance" proposed by Canning, the Ad-
ministration took prompt action on its own
responsibility, and the result was the declara-
ton in Monroe's message to Congress in De-
cember of that year warning Europe to keep
its hands off the independent Latin nations
of this Continent. What were Englands mo-
tives in this matter? Nobody supposes she
was prompted By any love for either the
Latln-American nations or the United States
or for the cause of freedom. Most OF the Amer
lean statesmen of that day attributed her
course to a knowledge that the profitable
trade she had with those nations would be cut
off if they were restored to Spain or ii the
Holy Alliance took possession OF them.
Adams thought her purpose was to commit
the United States against getting control of
any of them. These considerations should be
kept in mind when Canning's boast is read:
contemplating Spain such as our ancestors
had known her, resolved that if France had
Spain France had just suppressed popular
revolt in Spain] 1t should not be Spain with the
Indies. called the New World into existence
to redress the balance of the Old"
What were the views of Monroe's contem-
poraries as to the scope OF the Monroe declara-
ton? Adams who, as Secretary of State, is
understood to have written that part of the
message in 1923 which contains the "hands
Off" warning to Europe, said to Congress in
1925, as President, in his special message on
the objects of the Panama conference, the orig
inal "Pan-Ameriean" affair, that "each Latin
American nation] will guard, by its own means
against the establishment of any future Euro
pean colony within its borders" And he added
that "thiS was, more than two years ago, an
nounced by my predecessor to the world as
principle resulting from the emancipation of
both the American continents" These words
are against the notion that the United States
was to exercise guardianship over the whole
continent. Daniel Webster, in a speech in the
House in 1926 on the Panama mission, said the
Monroe declaration could not be "retracted or
annulled without disgrace" and that it was a
"brigh page in our history" If countries
''remote from us as Chile or Buenos Ayres
were essailed he thought We might content
ourselves with remonstrance," but he said "a
very different case would arise if a country
on "the shores of the Gulf of Mexico were in
vaded." Clay, Calhoun and most OF the states
men OF his period appeared to agree with this
view. Venezuela is near enough to the Gulf
OF Mexico to bring Englands assault upon her
within the scOpe of the Monroe warning,