The Portland daily press., 1895-05-03
MOTIVE IN NICARAGUA
Plain Talk by the Hon. Anthony Higgins
of Delaware.

(From his Speech at the Grant Banquet
of the Union League in Philadelphia,
April 27.)
Shall the United States thus permit
England to oppress Nicaragua with inn
punity? If the doctrine of Jefferson, of
Monroe and Adams is still the pub
law of this hemisphere, if it is not mere
waste paper, does not our government
regard England's action toward Nicara-
qua as unfricndly to the United States?
Still more, are we not only to stand idly
by. but actually to acquiesoe i'll this out
rage?
The case would be bad enough if it
went no further and meant no mora than
the harsh exaction from feeble Ameri-
can people of an obligated indemnity,
but it does not stop there. But one CON
struction can be placed upon the British
seizure of Nicaraguan soil. She thereby
obtains a foothold which she will not
4 give up until there is accorded to her by
| the United States some control over the
lsproposed canal. What foothold, in all
| her long history, has Great Britain ever
| voluntarily abandoned where her sinter-
ests are involved when once she has OBJ
| tained it, 10 know what she would do
now, it is only necessary to bear in
mind the way she got into Egypt and
| the way she stays there. So says Mr..
Gosling, her Minister to Nicaragua,
| though it did not need his words to let
| us know the fact. Moreover. what does
| it mean but the placing of such pres
| sure upon Nicaragua as to induce that
| government TO alter her policy in respect
| of the canal to one friendly to England
and inimical to the United States? Why
should not Nicaragua so alter her policy,
which she adopted in reliance upon the
application by the United States of the
Monroe doctrine, when the United States
abandons that doctrine, and after beconl-
ing the recipient from the small State
of untold confidence and generosity leaves
her naked and defenseless to Great Brit
ain? And if such should be the course
of the United States in this instance,
what policy may we expect hereafter
from every other State Of Central and
South America? What will become of
our control over the canal, dependent
rs it is absolutely upon the good viii of
Nicaragua. What will become of those
vast American interests on the Atlantic
and Pacific coasta, upon the Gulf and
in the Mississippi Valley, all of which
line and imperatiyely demand that it
shall remain exclusively in American
hands?.
"Our Reunited Country" both South
and North. in the majesty of it's peace
and its power. will not look on without
concern while its duty to Il feeble Ameri-
can republic goes unperformed, or
while supreme American interests are
abandoned. Nor will Great Britain make
anything By it. In the end she will
have to reckon with the American people.
They have made up their minds that to
them belongs the right OF the exclusive
control of this great waterway, not only
for their own interests, not i'll hostility
to others. but as its proper custodian and
trustee for the benefit of all mankind.
And whatever advantage Great Britain
may get from the abject, puillanimous,
and cowardly course of any American
administration she ought to know that
she will hold it only when she has shown
that she a stronger power than the
United States of A merica.