THE MEXICAN CRISIS.
AS we go to press on Thursday evening comes the news of a cavalry skirmish on the border between the forces of the United States and Mexico. In view of this fact, only the utmost restraint on the part of General Carranza—a thing not greatly to be expected—or his consciousness of military impotence can prevent war. A few days ago he demanded that the American troops, who have penetrated Some three hundred miles into Mexico in pursuit of Villa, should be withdrawn within a week. Mr. Wilson replied with a virtual ultimatum refusing to withdraw the troops, re.eiting the barbarities committed on the American aide of the frontier by Carranza's troops, and declaring that any further hostile act by the de facto ruler of Mexico would be visited by the "gravest consequences." In other words, Mr. Wilson has placed the issue of peace or war beyond his own control. He has left the decision to Carranza. In these circumstances the United States Government expect the worst and are preparing for it. The State Militia to the number of eighty thousand have been called out. These citizen soldiers are very much in the legal position occupied before the war by our own Territorials ; they enrolled them- selves only for home defence. Congress, however, can by special enactment ask them to volunteer for foreign service as was done in the Spanish-American War of 1898. It is not certain, even if the worst happens, that that step will be taken, as the employment of the Militia on the American side of the frontier would release, it is computed, about thirty thousand Regulars for the campaign in Mexico. We sincerely hope, however, that the American preparations will be well on the safe side. It is much better to prepare too much than too little. A war in the labyrinthine hills of Mexico is not an enterprise to undertake with a light heart by any means. The Mexicans may be lazy, but they are also clever fighters hi country they know well. Many Americans seem inclined to speculate upon the fact that the Mexicans, who are not themselves a manufacturing people, will be unable to supply themselves with arms and ammunition. The German source is cut off, and the Entente Powers would not sell ammunition to be used against American soldiers, even if they had a single cartridge to spare, which they have not. But it would be very unwise to speculate far upon these facts, favourable though they are up to a certain point to the American cause. The American blockade of Mexican ports will have to be extra- ordinarily rigid to prevent munitions coming in from some- where if the Mexicans should be able and willing to pay the price. If we do not misread some of the comments by Americans, there is an impression in the United States that Englishmen are rejoicing in the difficulties and dangers presented by the Mexican crisis. We cannot imagine how such an impression can have been produced, except by the feeling that in general men who consider that they have not received enough sym- pathy from quarters where they looked for it are very prone to indulge a malicious satisfaction when adversities over- take those who withheld their sympathy. That may be a natural law of human beings, but if it is believed that it operates in this case we can only say that a vast mistake is being made. Englishmen not only have no reason for desiring the discomfiture of the United States, but as a matter of fact there is no visible sign here of gratification of any kind, whether reasonable or unreasonable, natural or cynical. We have suffered far too much in the war, and understand only too intimately the meaning of the sound when, in Bright's phrase, the "beating of the wings" of the Angel of Death is heard, for us to wish similar sorrows to descend upon any people, and least of all upon the Americans. If we may judge by our own feelings, there is nothing but the most friendly concern, amounting to anxiety, for the gallant Regulars of the United States Army in Mexico, who are said to be beset by greatly superior numbers. General Pershing apparently has with him between ten and fifteen thousand men, and according to a statement in the Times about fifty thousand Mexicans are hovering round him. We earnestly hope that this brave band of men who have rushed far into Mexico in dutiful obedience to the policy of the American Government may come to no harm through lack of sufficient support. It is a spectacle to move the pity of any one capable of admiring the um-self-regarding performance of duty when well-trained and skilful soldiers are menaced by a fate from which a different course of action might conceivably have shielded them.
We hope we ma'- not be thought too impertinent if we argue on from the posi on of General Pershing, which is at least dangerous whate -or precautions may now be taken to reinforce his column, to the position of all the soldiers and sailors whom the United States Government may yet employ in carrying out their policy. We are only looking at the situation from the point of view of the soldiers and sailors whose fates are disposed by a political authority above them when we trust that neither the Army nor the Navy may be asked to try to do what is impossible. It is not to be supposed for a moment that Mr. Wilson and his colleagues would be guilty of the cruelty—for cruelty it would he, and nothing less—of sending slender forces to contend with masses of barbaric opponents. But there may easily be a tendency in a country which is temperamentally given over to pacific doctrines to underrate the strength of the enemy. If the enemy's power is overestimated, ni great harm is done. Some unnecessary expenditure has been incurred. But if the enemy's strength is underestimated and a military disaster occurs through sending small forces against large ones, nothing can over bring compensation for the precious lives sacrificed, or cure th remorse of those who made the disaster possible. It is the invariable tendency of the pacificist mind to invite unnecessary suffering by insufficient preparation. Every time he refuses a vote for the instruments of death and destruction the pacifieist flatters himself that he has done a service to humanity. But it may be that he is really laying up untold misery for the blameless agents of his policy. We have never disguised our belief that the murders of foreign residents, the rapes, the pillage, and the unceasine° slaughter which mark the internecine conflicts between rival bandit chieftains in Mexico can be ended only by the occupation of the country by a large Ameri- can Army. On March 7th, 1914, when Mr. Wilson Wal unfolding the policy which has culminated in the present desperate situation, we wrote :— "We cannot help saying that, in our judgment, the time has come for the United States to tecognize that intervention is inevitable, and that it bad better take place sooner than later. . . . Let us suppose that there is me:ely a likelihood that in the end the plan of ` watchful waiting' will prove futile. Look at the certain results if that should be the ease. A great many more innocent lives will have been sacri- ficed, and the destruction of property will have been ruinous. A large part of Northern Mexico will have been reduced to the ideal state of Mr. Lloyd George's land valuers—stripped of all human improvements and to be contemplated only as a site value. But this would be a terrible achievement for Mr. Wilson to look back upon as the outcome of his excellent principle of sparing the world all un- necessary suffering. He does not deny his tesponsibility . . . Now, suppose that intervention had been decided upon, and that the United States, by firm action, had discharged in the simplest and most d.n3et way the obligations of the Monroe Doctrine. It might be that when the Mexican rebels had been plainly taught that fo:eign sub:ccts cannot be murdered without punishment being visited upon those guilty of the crimes, and when order had been re-established in the country, Mr. Wilson would be troubled by doubts whether intervention had really been necessary—whether everything -.vould not have come right without it. But in that ease no moral wrong would, after all, have been committed. Thew wuuld be nothing to weigh ill:on Mr. Wilson's conscience. He would justly be able to feel that ho had looked on inactively quite as long as inaction was held tolerable by American citizens and by foreign nations whose interests are involved in the Monroe Doctrine. On tho other hand, if loot, murder, and arson had been allowed to continue till the tale of horror had cried out to Heaven, he would not be able to rid his conscience of the sense that a great moral wrong had indeed been committed with his sanction. It will be said that Mr. Wilson's well-known instincts of humanity, which determine everything he does, make it very wrong to talk of his sanction of crime. But it will be understood that we are writing on the principle that a policy must be judged by its tthets and not by its motives."
The need for thoroughness in dealing with Mexico seems to us to be just as urgent as it was more than two years ago. Delay has indeed made it more urgent. And there is another reason. The Germans have notoriously been stirring up the Mexicans, and in " preparedness " against the Mexicans the United States will only be entering upon that policy of general " preparedness " against the Germans, or any other pre- datory nation, in which all good Americans profess to believe. We may be sure that after the Gzeat War Germany will try to recoup herself so far as possible in South America. The shadowy ideals of " Pan-Americanism " will avail the United States nothing. It must never be forgotten that the South Americans resent the protecting arm thrown round them by the Moneoe Doctrine. Therefore South America will be fertile soil for German blandishments. " Preparedness " on a very large scale both in the Navy and the Army will be the cheapest and most humane policy for the United States.
Previous page
