1 JANUARY 1927, Page 5

The fervour for the League which has recently been expressed

by the Central American Republics is easily explained. The League has suddenly become a conveni- ent barrier against particular expressions of the Monroe Doctrine. The Republics have been feeling recently that the Doctrine, though nominally a protective mantle thrown over the whole of Central and South America, is really being used by their powerful northern neighbour to secure herself at the expense of others. The agents of Central and South America at Washington, many of whom are Americans paid professionally to represent the interests of the various Republics, have been specially busy of late, and it must be admitted that some of their propaganda has been taken rather too seriously by the State Department. It must have been in an unguarded moment, for instance, that the State Department allowed itself to be convinced that Mexico was trying to extend " a Bolshevist hegemony " throughout Central America. The Mexicans may be many things, but they are not Bolshevists.