The Monroe Doctrine, the Polk Doctrine, and the Doctrine of
Anarchism. By Whitelaw Reid. (New York.)—Mr. Reid speaks his mind very frankly. He holds by the Monroe doctrine so far as it seems reasonable to him. It must hold good, he conceives, of Venezuela, which, situated as it is, no foreign Power should be allowed to occupy ; but should it hold good of Patagonia ? Does it require the United States to be responsible for the good behaviour of the South American Republics, with their incessant changes of Government ? (Mr. Reid gives in an appendix a most edifying chronicle of revolutions in Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, &c.) And what, he asks, would the States say if a doctrine, analogical to that called after Monroe, were set up by Europe about Africa ? The "Polk doctrine" is a somewhat more intense form of the Monroe. It would forbid, as Mr. Reid puts it, the purchasing of a coaling station off the coast of Chile, or on the confines of Patagonia. To England, settled firmly in the Western Hemisphere, it would be a great advantage if our possible enemies among the European Powers should be cut off from the occupation of coaling stations in half the world. As to Anarchism, Mr. Reid emphatically protests against conceding a political character to its crimes.
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