19 JULY 1919, Page 11

A MONROE DOCTRINE FOR THE BRITISH EMPIRE. [To THE Enrroa

OF THE " SPECTATOR.")

Sin,—The telegrams we have been reading in our daily papers during the past month have set us all wondering why England, America, and the League of Nations should agree to apply the Monroe Doctrine to America and not to Africa. The white race in Africa looks upon the entire territory be- tween Cape Town in the South, and the Sudan and Abyssinia in the North, as essentially one country; and most of us look upon it as a land where our race will thrive infinitely better than in London or New York. Past history has proved that England can be trusted to hold all parts of Africa for ultimate popular self-government—a trust which Paul Kruger hope- lessly failed to carry out, and a trust which we cannot see the reasonableness of investing any other European Power with. No African would knowingly have fought to turn the Germans out of East Africa had he known he was also fighting to in- crease thes&frican territories of Belgium or Italy. Surely no European State will argue, because we are, and desire to re- main, within the federation of the Empire, that therefore we

may be deprived of a united Africa. After the Jameson Raid you published a letter from me over my own name. Kindly