The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-02-25

quence which is SO much in the line OF
historical development that IL may be
deemed, IL not certain. yet at any rate
highly probable. A canal constructed and
policed sby the United States government
will OF course draw considerable number
Of American officials to settle at its two
ends and along its banks. The vast trade
which will pass through it will lead to the
growth of towns, and the upper class of
the population in those towns will come
from the United States. The line Of the
canal will before long be practically a
detached part of the United States terri
tory, and from 1t various commercial and
industrial enterprises will tend to spread
into the adjoining districts. The United
States will therefore have material and
political interests to care for and and to
protect in a region which has hitherto re-
manned undeveloped, despite great natural
resources, because it has been in the hands
of a backward and sluggish population.
very ignorant. very superstitions, and ap-
parently incapable of developing free and
progressive institutions. Nominally re-
publics, these Central American states,
like most of the South American states,
have been for the last half century mere
military tyrannies. Even without a trans
continental canal, it is likely that in course
OF time the great civilized and progressive
power of the North American continent
would have acquired control over these
regions. because the United States has
surplus Of population, which her western
lands will not always be able to absorb.
fS hoc~ 70 of
capital, which will seek fields for its en-
ployment beyond the range of its own
dominion. There was, therefore, always a
probability that through industry and COM
merce United States influence would be-
gin to dominate Central America, and
eventually result in some kind of political
supremacy.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE.
The great obstacle to such development
| lay in the dangers to the political system
| of the United States itself, which the &C
| QUESTION Of countries peopled by inferior
| races must involve, and in the long settled
maxim which forbade the Republic to en-
bark on policy of conquest and annexa-
| ton where the country to be conquered
| could not be settled by her own citizens
and Incorporated into her own system
| an equal member, filled by a population
like that which fills the existing States.
This maxim. however seems to have been
| now abandoned, or. a. any rate, disregard
| ed; witness the annexation of Hawaii and
Porto Rico and the occupation of the Phil
| ippine isles, not TO speak of Cuba, whose
| future remains undetermined. 1t may ac-
| cordingly be conjectured that the old prin-
| ciples which would have deferred the
| United States from acquisitions in Central
| America will be less potent hereafter than
they have been heretofore. Thus the field
| is left open for the operation of that gen.
| eral Law under which the stronger and
| more progressive races spread out of their
former seats into the territories occupied
| by the weaker and more backward races,
| and end by absorbing the latter or reduc-
| ing them to subsection. Even without the
| construction of transcontinental canal
| this might, in the course Of ages. have
| been expected to happen in Central
| America.
The settlement In Central America OF
| immigrants energetic and restless people
from the United States, and the political
authority which the policing Of the canal
(even assuming that authority does not go
further than policing) obviously involves.
are likely to accelerate this natural pro-
cess and may within few decades bring
| about results which would otherwise have
come far later. And 1t may be remarked
| that the field is far clearer in America
than it was in Egypt, where the rivalries
of the great European powers opposed OBJ
stacles there to the predominance of any
single one among them which do not exist
in Nicaragua or Costa Rica or Colombia.
Had De Lesseps and the French succeeded
in making the Panama canal the problem
would have been less simple.
The piercing of continents, with the
change thereby involved in the geograph-
ical conditions which nature gave TO man
when he became civilized enough to make
ocean voyages, has been usually considered
from the point of view of its results upon
commerce. Those results have been great
in the case of the Suez canal and will EVIL
IDENTIFY be great in the case of one which
traverses the American isthmus. They will
affect the trade of England with her Aus
tralian colonies as we'll as the trade Of the
eastern United States with the Pacific to
an extent it is still hard to foresee. But,
| as in the case of the Suez canal, the politi-
cal consequences may prove to be, If not
Immediately. yet within the lifetime OF men
: now living, even more momentous. Nor
will they affect Central America only
They may spread further to the south. And
should they follow the line which has beer
indicated as not improbable they will az
feet the whole policy of the United States
} and may make the Republic something
very different from what its founders con-
templated. JAMES BRYCE
SHE LOOKED AT CREsTs.