abilities, are the conditions that will make the Monroe Policy square with the legal and moral rights of other nations, and in so doing will reduce the danger to Latin America and to the United States of any attempt to break it down. It is impossible to lay down a general rule for the forms that enforcement should take. Our action in any particular case must be determined by our honor and interests in that case alone. It is certain, however, that the United States should set about the task in a spirit of fraternity and altruism, and that the interference with the governments of Latin America should be as slight as safety to ourselves and to them may permit. President Roosevelt's attitude was clearly expressed in a message to Congress when he said: We would interfere with them only in the last resort and then only if it became evident that inability or unwillingness to do justice at home and abroad had violated the rights of the United States or had invited foreign aggression to the detriment of the entire body of American nations.67 It cannot be made too clear that enforcement is absolutely unnecessary in the case of such nations as Argentina, Brazil and Chile, which together make up two-thirds of the territory of South America. It is a commonplace to assert that these nations have passed out of the unstable, uncertain stage of national beginnings, and with their incomparable material resources and the statesmanlike qualities of their leaders, stand on a plane scarcely inferior to our own. Mr. Roosevelt recognizes this when he says: The great and prosperous civilized commonwealths such as the Argentine, Brazil and Chile, in the southern half of South America, have advanced so far that they no longer stand in any position of tutelage toward the United States. They occupy toward us precisely the position that Canada occupies.68 Enforcement has been rarely necessary and bids fair to become less so in the future in other states of South America south of the Caribbean. These states are making steady and definite progress toward political stability. 67 Message of 1904. Moore's Digest, sec. 968. 68 Outlook, 105:747. The countries bordering upon the Caribbean Sea and in the West Indies, however, present a difficult problem, and, unfortunately, at the same time, it is apparent that our immediate interests are more directly concerned in the Caribbean region than in the regions farther south. It is here that the state of the public debts occasions the most anxious concern on our part for their welfare. It is here that it is most frequently alleged that foreigners are mistreated and refused effective legal redress. It is here that a plausible case for foreign intervention resulting in political control could most easily be made.69 The necessity for a policy of enforcement is practically confined to the Caribbean region. By carrying out a careful policy of enforcement, then, the United States is acting with a clear case in law and ethics in upholding the Monroe Policy upon every occasion. The United States assumes a more dignified attitude, and maintains her policy on a distinctly higher plane. The policy which the United States finds absolutely necessary for her peace and safety has become a policy not indeed international law, but a policy not repugnant to its principles, as it might be were no means of enforcement undertaken. If change is necessary in the enforcement of the Monroe Policy, it must be in the direction of more tactful or more vigorous methods of procedure. At all events, the Monroe Policy, enforcement and all, must be maintained. There has been much agitation, particularly since the mediation of Argentina, Brazil and Chile in the Mexican difficulty, for a Pan-American Policy. Advocates of that policy desire that the republics of South and Central America, or at least the A B C Powers, should join with the United States on equal terms for the enforcement and maintenance of the Monroe Policy.70 Although these proposals are usually nebulous and indefinite, within certain well-defined limits such a policy would be of distinct advantage. If the United States were to adopt the practice 69 Dr. Hershey, in discussing the rule of non-intervention (p. 154), says that it is limited to nations possessing a certain degree of stability and order. "Whether such states as those of Central America, with all their boasted sovereignty, are capable of affording such a degree of order and protection, is, to say the least, very doubtful." 70 This subject is very fully treated in the Annals for July, 1914. Mr. Taft approves the general principle. Independent, 76:542. See also the report of the Clark University Conference, summarized by President Blakeslee in No. Am. R., 198:779, and in the Outlook, 105:740. of inviting the coöperation of Argentina, Brazil and Chile in cases of protest and intervention in Latin America, the moral effect would be excellent. Such a practice would allay the increasing suspicion and distrust with which acts of enforcement by the United States alone are regarded in Latin America. By including as enforcing Powers republics of kindred race, language and institutions, it would make protest more effective and intervention less necessary. It would help to produce a spirit of cordial Pan-Americanism that would not only benefit us politically but would increase the opportunities for our commerce. It would remove from the Monroe Policy any suspicion of territorial aggrandizement, and cause it to be regarded as what it is, simply a defensive policy in the interests both of Latin America and of the United States. The Monroe Policy would cease to be unilateral, and would acquire a continental importance and sanction. As Ex-Secretary Olney said in a recent address: * * That an American concert of purely American states would tend to prevent wars between states as well as insurrections and revolutions within states and that the United States as a leading member of the concert might be counted upon as an agency for good even more potent than if acting in the invidious rôle of sole and supreme dictator, seem to be tolerably sure results.71 It must be emphasized, however, that the United States must never put herself in a position in which she will be unable to declare or enforce the Monroe Policy by herself, in case other American Powers should refuse to act with her in a case in which her interests are involved. Prof. Leo S. Rowe advocates a Pan-American enforcement, "provided, that in making it Pan-American, we do not relinquish the right to maintain it independent of the will of any one of the other Powers of the American continent." 72 With this limitation, Pan-American enforcement would be an unqualified blessing, and present circumstances seem to point toward some form of it in the not far distant future. Pan-American enforcement will be the capstone to the edifice erected by the United States through long 71 Annals, 54:81. As to precedents for joint action, the United States and Mexico intervened jointly in Central America in 1907, and the United States, Argentina and Brazil mediated between Peru, Ecuador and Chile in 1911. 72 Proc. Am. Soc. Int. Law, 1914, p. 131. years of patient labor. It will realize the ardent hopes and prophecies of Bolivar the Liberator when he said: * * * Would to God that some day we may be fortunate enough to establish an august congress of representatives of the republics, kingdoms and empires of America An assembly of this kind may possibly be held at some future time * * * The will of God has not separated these nations without a purpose, by the immensity of two oceans from the rest of the world. ROBERT D. ARMSTRONG. BOARD OF EDITORS OF THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW CHANDLER P. ANDERSON, New York, N. Y. DAVID JAYNE HILL, Washington, D. C. CHARLES CHENEY HYDE, Northwestern University. JOHN BASSETT MOORE, Columbia University. GEORGE G. WILSON, Harvard University. Editor in Chief JAMES BROWN SCOTT, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D. C. Secretary of the Board of Editors and Business Manager EDITORIAL COMMENT THE RIGHT OF PRIZE AND NEUTRAL ATTITUDE TOWARD ADMISSION OF PRIZES The presence in American jurisdiction of the Appam, an English vessel captured by a German cruiser, suggests some remarks upon the right to make prize, the method of determining the title thereto, and the practice of nations in allowing or prohibiting prizes, accompanied or unaccompanied by the capturing vessel, to enter and to remain in neutral ports. In the first place, public armed vessels of the enemy upon the high seas are subject to capture, and title passes from government to government without the need of a decision of a prize court, unless the individual captors are by the law of their country entitled to a share in the spoils, |