MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES.
THE United States Ambassador in Mexico City is reported to have sent a reassuring message to Washington about the situation in Mexico. He is said to have stated his disbelief in the story that the existing Government planned the murder of ex-President Madero and the ex-Vice-President Senor Suarez, and to have declared that the Government is acting with " firmness " - and "prudence." We sincerely hope that he is not mistaken in any respect, but we fear that he states what : he ardently desires to believe. We are bound to say that the details of Madero's death, so far as they are known, and the threats of new risings in the Northern provinces are enough -to justify anyone in taking the gloomiest view of the future of Mexico. Chaos and the sway of the assassin in Mexico, we must remember, mean intense anxiety and the most formidable political and military difficulties in the United States. By pressing the Monroe Doctrine,- as undoubtedly she does press it, the United States renders herself responsible for order in Mexico.. Other Powers may wish to intervene in Mexico to protect the lives and property of their nationals, but the Monroe Doctrine in effect forbids them to do so. But is the United States able herself to do what she forbids others to do ? Has she assumed the honourable position of trustee without any means of performing the work of the trust? We shall return to this perplexing and very important matter presently ; it is really the heart of the business from the point of view of Europe. But first let us look at the actual state of things in Mexico.
General Huerta, who became Provisional President upon the downfall of Madero, appears to be working amicably enough with General Diaz, who led the rebel forces. General Diaz talks as though he were indifferent as to who is President so long as it is not anyone of the name of Madero. His rebellion was as much as anything else an act of private vengeance against the man who supplanted • the famous President, Porfirio Diaz ; it was a kind of vendetta carried on by a nephew on behalf of his uncle. Later on, when the provisional presidency comes to an end, General Diaz will probably himself become a candi- date for the Presidency. Meanwhile he seems to be aiding General Huerta in a policy of exterminating the Madero faction. Madero's relations and followers command wealth and influence, and therefore their existence cannot be tolerated—that appears to be the short and simple plan for establishing the present Government. The official story of the death of Madero and Suarez hardly bears examination. It is said that when they were being removed from the Palace to the penitentiary a party of sympathisers attempted their rescue, and that in the fighting they were both killed. It is a very strange fact that no one else was killed—except two luckless rurales, whose lives may have been sacrificed to lend colour to the story of a skirmish—and no one else even wounded. Attempts at rescue may be very badly managed in Mexico, but, frankly, we do not believe in an attempt which ends in the death of the very two persons whose lives it was proposed to save. We conclude that the new Government did not want the trouble of going through the formality of a trial which must necessarily end in only one way— in the execution of Madero. Madero had to be removed —so they argued -- if his personality was not to remain a rallying point and a centre of intrigue. But it would have been difficult to execute Madero with protests coming all the time from the United States. At the first suggestion of ,danger to Madero a strong plea for humane treatment came from Washington. The "attempted rescue," however, cut all the difficulties. It is probably impossible to prove that Madero was " removed " according to a carefully arranged plan, yet in effect the new Govern- ment of Mexico have done what, if we remember rightly, Mabmud the Terrible did when the soldiers demanded that he should give up his son to them. Cutting off his son's head, Mahmud hurled it out of the tent to the petitioners and told them that their request was granted. • The answer to the American remonstrance is symbolical of all the difficulties of the United States in dealing with Mexico.
The popular acclamation of General Huerta and General Diaz in Mexico City means just about as much as the acclamation of Madero when he had overthrown Porfirio Diaz. When Porfirio Diaz fell, the people believed that they were weary of a personal tyranny and that they wanted the Constitutionalism provided for by the law but never granted. Now they believe that they are tired of the idealism and ineffective constitutionalism of Madero and want Diazism back again. How can one expect peace. and quiet to come out of such restlessness ? Porfirio Diaz no doubt was a tyrant, but he was a successful tyrant, and he made his country what it is. But it is given to only one ruler in a million to be a successful tyrant. One cannot help fearing that Mexico, in reverting to the pre-Diaz conditions, will unwittingly revive the confused and tragic days which followed the emancipa- tion from Spain. Between 1821 and 1876 there were fifty-two Presidents, the unhappy Emperor Maximilian, and a Regent—" all murthered," as Shakespeare's Richard II. says of his fellow-monarchs, or at least nearly all. Personal ambition has always been strong among the Mexicans, and now there must be a lot of unemployed wealth in the country which can be used for the advancement of personal causes. Nor is ambition the only factor. Discontent is rampant in the provinces, and a leader of rebellion need never want for a following. We expect to hear before very long that the rebel bands of the north are moving towards the capital. But even if the northern rebellion should not be of a very formidable kind, it may nevertheless be serious enough to require suppression, and that would. very likely mean a long continuance of bloody and indecisive fighting—a condition of things which the United States has already declared to be intolerable. And here we come to the crux of the matter—the probable necessity of intervention by the United States.
We do not wonder that Americans shrink from the thought of a Mexican campaign, and yet they must admit that it is impossible to defend the logic of the Monroe Doctrine unless they are prepared to make it good in such a case as this. Logically they should either guarantee the effectual protection of life and property throughout the Western world or they should. modify the Monroe Doctrine so as to admit the co-operation of other Powers who may be interested in the affairs of Central and South America. A glance at the map is enough to suggest the terrors of a. Mexican campaign. The tortuous length of the Rio Grande with its unpopulated regions is a vast frontier to guard. Properly to guard it, and to keep the communica- tions of an army open, an enormous force would be required. The Mexicans are practised raiders, and could do immense injury by scattered counter-strokes against the frontier towns in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Then the advance of an American expeditionary force from the Rio Grande through the mountainous country to Mexico City would be a. gigantic undertaking. Transport would be a problem quite beyond. the immediate resources of the American Commissariat Department, and ambuscades would await the invaders at every turn. Of course, from Vera Cruz the route to the capital is very much shorter, but then there would be the additional burden of keeping up a transport service by sea either from Galveston or New Orleans. The American Navy would be of little use in such a war. The United States has not got an army, or anything like an army, ready for the campaign. When troops were marshalled on the frontier at the time of the fall of President Diaz, not much more than twenty thousand could be raised. for expeditionary purposes. Remember that the United States cannot spare more than a certain proportion of her army for a Mexican campaign. Besides the guarding of the frontier, there are the Atlantic and Pacific coastal defences to be manned, and the Philippines and the other posses- sions require their garrisons. These would have to be strengthened rather than reduced, as war with Mexico would expose the United States to the risk of complications with other Powers. Recent experience of the barbarous behaviour of the Mexican rulers inspires every American, as the correspondent of the Morning Post says, with the dread that armed intervention would be the signal for the murder of Americans in Mexico. No doubt in the end if Americans set their teeth they would accomplish whatever they intended to do. A vigorous population of nearly ninety millions can do almost anything if it has time. But much time, perhaps years, would be required. Our own difficulties in the South African war might turn out to be light in comparison with the difficulties of a Mexican campaign. The American power of building up an army out of nothing, which appeared in the Civil War, might have to be evoked again. From the moment the United States declared war the internal dissensions of the Mexicans would disappear. Divide et impera is no longer the " cunning maxim " that Bacon called it when it is applied to Mexico, because the Mexicans refuse to be divided in the face of a common danger. Maximilian tried to divide them and failed. Their hatred of the foreigner, and particularly of the presuming American foreigner, surmounts every other consideration. Unless the United States should have good luck in the near future the Monroe Doctrine will be brought to the test. We sincerely hope that this may not happen, foi the Monroe Doctrine is, in our judgment, an extraordinarily useful instrument for maintaining the peace of the world. By asserting the inviolability of the New World it rules out nearly half the globe from the wrangles of Europe. We should infinitely prefer that the weakness on which it rests should never be discovered, or at least never be challenged. But we cannot help feeling that circumstances will sooner or later be too strong for the rulers of the United States, and that they will be compelled. to answer the great dilemma of their foreign policy. Either they must admit the possibility of co-operation with other Powers in Central and South America, or they must support their authority by the vast armaments which alone would corre- spond to their undertakings.
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