etain existing possessions in the Americas, but such
possessions must not be increased. So far, so good. A European nation,
which sought defiantly to increase its American possessions, in spite of
the express declaration of the United States that such action would mean
war, would deserve the war thereby incurred. But there are many ways of
increasing the political influence of European Powers in the Americas
without actual territorial appropriation. The emigration from several
European states and from Japan to South America is already
considerable, and is likely to increase rather than diminish. European
commercial interests in South America are greater than ours, and in the
future will become greater still. The South Americans have already
borrowed large quantities of European capital, and will need more. The
industrial and agricultural development of the South American states is
constantly tying them more closely to Europe than it is to the United
States. It looks, consequently, as if irresistible economic conditions
were making in favor of an increase of effective European influence in
South America. The growth of that influence is part of the
world-movement in the direction of the better utilization of the
economic resources of mankind. South America cannot develop without the
benefits of European capital, additional European labor, European
products, and European experience and training; and in the course of
another few generations the result will be a European investment in
South America, which may in a number of different ways involve political
complications. We have already had a foretaste of those consequences in
the steps which the European Powers took a few years ago to collect
debts due to Europeans by Venezuela.

The increasing industrial, social, and financial bonds might not have
any serious political consequences, provided the several South American
states were possessed of stable governments, orderly political
traditions, and a political standing under definite treaties similar to
that of the smaller European states. But such is not the case. The alien
investment in South America may involve all sorts of political
complications which would give European or Asiatic Powers a justifiable
right under the law of nations to interfere. Up to the present time, as
we have seen, such interference has promised to be too costly; but the
time may well come when the advantages of interference will more than
counterba