American plutocracy for its
elucidation. If on the other hand, we restrict our policy to the
protection of the interests of Latin Americans, Europeans and
ourselves, we shall not only be safe-guarding our own peace, but shall
be removing a future coveted area from the field of international
strife. To adopt such a policy, however, means that we must be better
informed and more concrete. It is absurd to lump together all
Latin-American countries, as though all were equally advanced in
civilisation. To compare the Argentine with San Domingo is to discover
differences almost as great as between Holland and Abyssinia. Mexico
is far more significant to us politically, economically and in a
military sense than Brazil or Chile. Into the question of Panama,
Haiti and the West Indian Islands generally, elements enter that are
absent from our relations with Venezuela or Ecuador. Our policy
towards these countries need not be identical. We should have a
Mexican policy, a separate policy for the West Indian Islands, another
policy for the Caribbean States, and an individual policy for each
South American state. Our interests and obligations differ in these
states. We cannot pretend to the same vital interest in the internal
peace of Argentina as in that of our next door neighbour. We cannot
cover these diverse conditions with the blanket of one vague doctrine.

In our relations to Latin America, moreover, we should not grasp at
political sovereignty, if the reasonable economic interests of the
world can in any way be secured without political incorporation. We
are gradually being forced into a policy of acquiring dominion over
certain Caribbean countries. We have a financial guardianship in Haiti
and San Domingo; we have "taken" Panama, {211} and it probably needs
only a little disorder to give us a quasi-protectorate over other small
countries in the same neighbourhood. The United States, however, is on
the whole still averse from such interference, wherever avoidable. We
have kept faith with Cuba and there is strong opposition to acquiring
Mexico, despite the agitation of financiers and instinctive border-line
patriots. The problem is not easy, for a measure of peace in these
neighbouring states is not only essential to us but is demanded by
Europe (who will interfere if we do not) and peace may eventually
require intervention. In countries like Haiti, which show at present
an invincible distaste for orderly gove