The Times of Thursday gives a detailed and apparently inspired
account of the dispute between this country and Venezuela. That dispute has been carried on for a hundred years, and without result. It is difficult to put the matter shortly without recourse to a map, but the following facts are worth noting. When we conquered Guiana from the Dutch, we naturally claimed all that they had ever claimed, and so took over a quarrel with the Spanish, who asserted that a portion of territory claimed by the Dutch really belonged to them. From this claim we have never receded, and apparently it is a perfectly valid one; but we have always expressed ourselves willing to arrive at a compromise. The successors of the Spaniards—the Republic of Venezuela —have, however, most foolishly refused these overtures, with the result that the possibility of concession on our part yearly decreases. As the country develops, people enter and occupy the territory in dispute. But naturally, we cannot, with fairness to the colonists, yield occupied territory with the same easiness that we could give up unoccupied. From this it will be seen that Venezuela is trying to oust us out of territory which we have claimed for over one hundred years,—long, that is, before the Monroe doctrine was born or thought of. In truth, that doctrine does not apply in the slightest degree, and it would be by no means prudent or wise or friendly were the United States to interfere. But that, we take it, they are not really doing, though Jingo pressure has induced the State Department to write a long despatch, for the delivery of which it had in reality no locus Biondi. The Monroe doc- trine was meant to prevent America being sucked into the European whirlpool, not to support the Southern Republics in poaching on their neighbours' soil.
