armer or
stonemason, however, feels that the United States has certain interests
and rights abroad. Our citizens should have the right to travel freely
upon the high seas and in foreign countries and to enjoy privileges and
immunities granted to citizens of other nations. We should have equal
access with other nations to the sources of raw materials and to world
markets, subject to the reserved right of each nation, including the
United States, to levy customs duties for the protection of its own
industries. Finally we should enjoy the right of {206} investing our
capital and conducting our businesses abroad under the equal protection
of the laws of the particular country.

All this is of course vague. It does not determine what protection we
should assure ourselves in a country whose government is corrupt or
unstable, nor does it consider the contingency of a weak nation,
granting under duress more favourable conditions to some other foreign
nation than to us.

While however we cannot arrive at any final decision as to the details
of our foreign policy, we can at least formulate in general terms
certain principles which we may seek to apply. The most vital of these
principles is equal opportunity for all nations, and no special
advantage for ourselves or others.

In accepting such a principle the United States would be merely
applying to a territory, over which it held a dominant influence, a
policy which, if universally applied by all the Great Powers, would
immensely reduce the area of international friction. To apply such a
principle in good faith is the first and most obvious contribution that
we can make to economic internationalism. We cannot in reason demand
the open door in Asia or in Europe's colonies if in our own colonies
and in other lands where we are paramount, we adopt a contrary policy.
We can afford to concede this principle of equal opportunity because of
our resources at home and the large share of trade and investment
opportunities which will come to us without special favours. What we
might get above that is not worth the risk. A policy of taking all we
can get, whether other nations suffer or not, is, apart from all other
considerations, injudicious.

Such a policy of aggression might be cloaked for instance under the
Monroe Doctrine, a vague tenet, capable {207} of contraction or
infinite expansion. If we allow our speculators to determine its
meaning, we shall in due course interp