Omaha daily bee., 1895-10-27

SallsDury mas announced can have no other
result than war IL persisted in.
The first answer to that is that Lord
Salisbury has announced no policy. II Sen
ator Lodge has any private information about
Lord Salisbury's policy, he ought to COM
municate 1t to his countrymen. None
has been made public. The very fact that
none has been made public is one Of the
lingo grievances against him and his govern
ment, and his country. Mr.. Olney's dispatch
was sent last July or August. 1t has been
formally acknowledged, and that is all. Mr..
Olney Is said to have defined, for the first
time in any official dispatch to the govern
ment Of Great Britain, the Monroe doctrine;
to have affirmed expressly and with a full
statement of the particulars, the applca-
bility of the doctrine to this Venezuela dis
pute; and to have invited Lord Salisbury
to say whether he does or does not assent
to the Monroe doctrine, now as laid down.
and whether If he does, he admits that it
governs the case of Venezuela.
SALISBURY'S HANDS ARE FULL.
Now those propositions and questions are Of
the most serious nature. They may prove
momentous They are novel and of vast
extent and import. They are addressed to
u
lister of Great Britain, and who, in both
capacities, has had on hand since last July
at least two first rate controversies, both of
which involved the use or the show of
force, China and Armenia. He has two
lesser, but both pressing matters Ashanti and
Trinidad. He has Siam and the host of
questions raised by France in connection with
half dozen different disputes with England
all over the globe. He has the colonial diff
ferences with Germany in Africa and not
with Germany alone. He has all the ques-
tlons growing out of the japanese victory
over China, involving the supremacy of the
eastern seas, the vast commercial and po-
litica interests of England in that part of
the globe. and involving also, as yesterday
showed US with startling suddenness, the
relations between England, Russia, France,
China and Japan, throughout the whole of
that enormous Asiatic domain.
Such are the circumstances in which some
of us complain that an immediate answer has
not been returned to the Venezuelan dis
patch of the American secretary of state.
That dispatch, we are told from Washing
ton, was not less than 5000 words in length,
some six newspaper columns lonP, and ac-
printed folio pages in foreign Office type.
1t was drawn mainly from Venezuelan
sources, states the Venezuelan side of the
case, and makes a distinct demand, we are
assured, that Great Britain shall agree to the
precise form of arbitration which Venezuela
prefers. The controversy which it sums up
has lasted more than half century. What
reason is there for haste? The ultmatum
of Lord Salisbury to Venezuela? Well, no
body yet knows whether Lord Salisbury has
sent any ultlmatum. II he has, it is be-
| lieved to relate to what is known as the
Uruan incident, which is already a year
old, in which Venezuela has admitted she was
| wrong, but still refuses to pay an indemnity
| for her wrongful seizure Of British colonial
| police on territory long in British occupation.
| Lord Salisbury summons her to pay up or
take the consequences.
WOULD DO WELL TO CONSIDER.
She would have paid before now had she
not hoped to embroil US with England, and in
| duce us to pull her Venezuelan chestnuts out
| of the fire. If we are to be catspaw to
every South American republic which wishes
| to evade its just obligations, we shall have
our hands full indeed. We shall have not an
American policy, but Venezuelan policy, or
a Colombian policy, or a Patogonian
| policy. 1t will not be left to us to
choose. Our Spanlsh-American friends will
| choose for u.s. Is that a good position for the
! United States? 1t would be perfectly easy
| to define and enlarge and embroider the
Monroe doctrine in way which should leave
| us absolutely at the mercy Of these semi
civilized little states, whose republicanism
consists largely in never ending struggle
between bankruptcy and anarchy. 1t seems
to me quite consistent with patriotism to
consider little before we plunge into that
abyss and involve our own republic in this
half Spanish half Indian vortex
| GEORGE w. SMALLEY.