6 drapalch dated STAR DOLLAR DIPLOMACY OR COMMONSENSE WHICH?
The Parisian press sarcastically comments upon the policy advocated by Secretary of State Bryan regarding Nicaragua, qualifying it as dollar diplomacy, and crediting the Americans with ulterior and colonistic designs. resumé of the relations between the United States and Nicaragua during the past three years does not seem to justify this statement.
American capital is so extensively interested in Nicaragua and the fre.
quently recurring revolutions and manipulation of public funds has made the problem of the provision of safety for all such American investments a difficult one of solution. Nicaragua has been overwhelmed with a national debt, directly resulting from the two above evils and it has been only in an endeavor upon the part of the United States to guarantee protection to the capital of its citizens invested in Nicaragua, and at the same time to assure the government of Nicaragua its citizens and native enterprises of the prosperity incident to tranquility, that any arrangement of the kind now proposed by Mr. Bryan has been even thought of.
As the world has prospered those who have been foremost in the adVancement of humanity have invariably been ridiculed and censured. The inventors of those conveniences that have done most for the world progress were termed lunatics, when first they took the world into the secret of their inventions. The greatest reformers the world has ever known were thrown into prison. The reason?
Chiefly because they were far in advance of the times in which they lived.
Business between governments, as between individuais, must be conducted upon a purely business basis. There must be two parties to a bargain and each must at least feel certain in his own mind that he is getting a fair deal. True it is that there have in the world history been bargains or treaties made to the detriment of one of the contracting parties, because one of the governments had, by virtue of conquest, assumed the position of dictator. But in the Nicaraguan incident internal dissension has made it almost impossible for its own citizens to earn a decent livelihood, impossible to know today whether they would tomorrow be in the world beyond.
The truth about the situation seems to be that the foreign press is afraid that the United States hopes to use Central America as a means of controlling through the Panama Canal South American trade and assuming a more formidable position in the world commerce.
It seems strange that other nations should borrow trouble about the welfare of countries that appeal to the United States for aid, when the citizens of the countries directly interested are either tacitly or openly in favor of a protectorate or armed intervention to maintain the stability of their government.
Porto Ricans today are proud to be a part of the United States. glance at export and import statistics of that island, compared with the figures in years before it came into the possession of the United States clearly shows why they are so enthusiastic about Uncle Sam government. comparison of these same present statistics with those of countries in Centrale America having a larger area and greater natural resources, would show, the reader that one or two of the Central American republics would do well to have the protection of a stable government that would enable them to devote their attention to the many opportunities their land holds for them under favorable conditions, instead of allowing personal ambition, jealousy, intrigue and retaliatton to rack the very nerves of the republic It is for the benefit of Nicaragua, as well as for that of the American capital invested there, that the United States today proposes a compact with Nicaragua. American history does not read like dollar diplomacy when you read between the lines, and when you realize that it is pretty expensive to try and help the other fellow in his troubles. But it was ever thus. The more good you try to do the less credit the superfine observer is ready to give.