444 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



now functus officio. It being at best but a domestic policy, 

 its observance could not properly be enforced against foreign 

 nations. It had no place in international law, and conse- 

 quently it was unreasonable to expect other powers to recog- 

 nize it. Indeed, it was not even an established principle of 

 American diplomacy, for it had upon many occasions been 

 disregarded when it might with propriety have been appealed 

 to ; whenever proclaimed, it had been accepted by the coun- 

 try as merely the expression of a policy which imposed no 

 obligation upon the government to enforce it. Finally, it 

 was insisted that the occupation by Great Britain of some 

 hundreds of miles of comparatively worthless territory in 

 South America, theretofore considered as belonging to 

 Venezuela, in no manner affected the rights or interests 

 of the United States. On the contrary, some critics rather 

 openly hinted that the settlement of the disputed area by 

 British subjects would give to the territory better chances 

 for development under an assured good government, and 

 that England's occupation of the tract would therefore 

 inure to the advantage of American trade. So far as the 

 \\ ilds of the upper Orinoco were capable of civilized occu- 

 pation, it would be better for the commercial interests of the 

 world if they were under British jurisdiction than under the 

 uncertain rule of a nation whose weak and faltering govern- 

 ment has been throughout its history subject to constant 

 revolution. American trade with Great Britain and with 

 British possessions far exceeded the slender volume of Ameri- 

 can commerce with Venezuela. Indeed, to have imperilled 

 even for a year the five hundred millions of trade with 

 Great Britain for the sake of the annual two or three millions 

 with Venezuela would have been a quixotic proceeding. This 

 suspected expansion of British territory in South America 

 involved no danger to the safety of the United States. 

 England already possessed Canada with a contiguous boun- 

 dary line of nearly 3000 miles. The islands of Newfoundland, 

 Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, together with numerous 

 smaller islands of the Lesser Antilles and Trinidad, already 

 formed a chain of English naval posts along the coast of 



