The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-31

with authority but disputed claim, seizes territory and declines arbitration | upon it, her action does not differ from selzing and holding new territory in the Americas by right of conquest. The seizure of this South American territory by England and asserted, was an ab- solute violation of the Monroe doctrine.
 At the last session of congress" said MT Lodge, ''I called the attention of the senate and the country to the manner in which England had absorbed the Islands of the Pacific and to the neces- sity of our controlling the Hawaiian Islands a necessity which becomes now more pressing with each succeeding day. I ask you now to look at the | Caribbean sea, I ask you to note the strong naval station which England has established at St, Lucia.
 Follow the line thence westward and you find Trinidad, the development of which has been strongly pushed of late year, then Jamaica, and finally British Honduras. That line faces the South American coast. This territory claim cd from Venezuela is being pushed steadily to the westward along that coast and to the point at which it aims Is the control of the mouth of the l Orinoco, one of the great river systems of South America.
 "The purpose of these movements is written plainly on the map. If sue ces sful they will give Great Britain con- trol of the Spanish main and make the Caribbean sea little better than Brit ish lake"
 He concluded as follows;
 "We have seen British forces at Co., rinto, We know the attitude they as- sume in Venezuela. They are attempt ing to take land on the Alaskan boundary. They have just denounced the modis vivendi, and reopened in that way the perilous dispute in the north eastern fisheries It is not by accident that these events have all occurred, or all come to an acute stage within the past year.
 "They are not due to us, for we have committed no aggression upon any body Of all these difficulties which are now upon us the most immediate Is that involved in the dispute with Venezuela. They tell us that this ter ritory is remote and worthless It is remote, perhaps, but.it is not worthless, for if it had been the Venezuelan pos session of it would be undisputed.
 But it matters not whether it is worthless or valuable. The tea tax was trivial, but our forefathers refused to pay it because it involved a great principle, and the attempt to collect 1t cost Great Britain her North Amer- can colonies.
 "The American people believe to-day just as firmly in the principle of the Monroe doctrine. They deemed it es- sential to their honor, their safety and their interests as a nation, and they are prepared to defend it when it is as- sailed.
 MT. President, who is responsible for the unhappy strained relations be- tween England and the United States? As I have pointed out, we have not been the aggressor on.any of the points now in dispute, whether in Alaska or Venezuela What then has strained our relations? The peremptory refus- al to arbitrate this question of bound ary Who gave that refusal? Great Britain.
 we nave appointed coHHissloh, not to arbitrate between Great Brit ain and Venezuela. but to inform us, after careful investigation, what the true divisional line, in their opinion, should be- Who has drawn an arbitra- " line of boundary and declared that the should not arbitrate to the east of it2 Not the United States, but Great Britain. Ultimatums are what strain relations, and they have come from Great Britain and not from us.
 T believe that this question will be peacefully settled by the good sense of the representatives of England and the United States, but I am very clear that suchtsettlement can only be reached by action on the part of congress and of the president, which shall be as temper ate as it is firm, and which shall main tain the Monroe doctrine absolutely wherever it justly applies.
 That doctrine is as important as the balance of power is to Europe, and those who maintain the latter must not break down the principle which guards Ithc integrity of the Americas and pro tects them from the interference of for