ng from German outposts in the
southern seas so near to Australia, was not content to stand aside. So
it happened that all three countries sent battleships to the Samoan
waters, threatening a crisis that was fortunately averted by friendly
settlement. If, as is alleged, Germany entertained a notion of
challenging American sea power then and there, the presence of British
ships must have dispelled that dream.

The result of the affair was a tripartite agreement by which the three
powers in 1889 undertook a protectorate over the islands. But joint
control proved unsatisfactory. There was constant friction between the
Germans and the English. The spheres of authority being vague and open
to dispute, the plan had to be abandoned at the end of ten years.
England withdrew altogether, leaving to Germany all the islands except
Tutuila, which was ceded outright to the United States. Thus one of the
finest harbors in the Pacific, to the intense delight of the American
navy, passed permanently under American dominion. Another triumph in
diplomacy was set down to the credit of the State Department.

=Cleveland and the Venezuela Affair.=--In the relations with South
America, as well as in those with the distant Pacific, the diplomacy of
the government at Washington was put to the test. For some time it had
been watching a dispute between England and Venezuela over the western
boundary of British Guiana and, on an appeal from Venezuela, it had
taken a lively interest in the contest. In 1895 President Cleveland saw
that Great Britain would yield none of her claims. After hearing the
arguments of Venezuela, his Secretary of State, Richard T. Olney, in a
note none too conciliatory, asked the British government whether it was
willing to arbitrate the points in controversy. This inquiry he
accompanied by a warning to the effect that the United States could not
permit any European power to contest its mastery in this hemisphere.
"The United States," said the Secretary, "is practically sovereign on
this continent and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it
confines its interposition.... Its infinite resources, combined with its
isolated position, render it master of the situation and practically
invulnerable against any or all other powers."

The reply evoked from the British government by this strong statement
was firm and clear. The Monroe Doctrine, it said, even if not so widely
stretched by interpretation, was not binding in int