foreign governments tending to destroy Nicaraguan independence or to give foreign countries footholds on Nicaraguan soil;

(3) That no public debt shall be contracted beyond Nicaragua's ordinary revenue;

(4) That the United States Government may intervene (a) to protect Nicaraguan independence, (b) to help carry out the financial obligations of Nicaragua to the extent of supervising the collection of revenues and the disbursement of $3,000,000 which would be paid by the United States Government for an exclusive canal right-of-way across Nicaragua with a ninety-nine-year lease of a naval base in the Bay of Fonseca, and also of the Great Corn and Little Corn Islands in the Caribbean Sea.

Such a policy as above outlined was immediately criticised with some amusement by those who declare it strangely undemocratic and "very jingo." As a matter of fact, it is only a strong pronouncement of the President's attitude as to the maintenance of independence and stability of government in Latin America.

In the first place, there is found a benefit to ourselves as well as to Nicaragua in the fact that, just as in a similar provision with regard to Cuba, we put into definite terms the recognized principle of the Monroe Doctrine, prohibiting foreign nations from securing footholds on the American continent.

A second benefit would accrue from our right of intervention. The history of Cuba during the past dozen years under the Platt Amendment shows that the acknowledgment of this right exercises an influence to prevent the development of a situation calling for intervention. For whenever disorder has been threatened in Cuba a note from our Government, delivered as soon as the situation appeared alarming, has certainly in recent years been sufficient to restore calm. As in the case of Cuba, so in the case of Nicaragua, the possibility of invoking intervention may suffice to prevent hotheads from upsetting law and order; it should also be in Nicaragua, as in Cuba, a satisfaction both to the business interests involved and to all peace-loving and law-abiding people.

Still another benefit would lie in preventing revolution, not only in Nicaragua, but also in the neighboring states of Honduras and Salvador, because of the proposed establishment of a naval base for us in the Gulf of Fonseca. The waters of this gulf wash the shores of Nicaragua, Honduras, and Salvador, and in every one of the revolutions

either in or among those republics the waters of the gulf have carried many a filibustering or revolutionary expedition. Thus our control of the gulf should bring about an international as well as national benefit.

NICARAGUAN FINANCE

A fourth benefit under the proposed treaty is assured in the clauses by which Nicaragua binds herself not to assume any public debt in the discharge of which her ordinary revenues should be inadequate.

Her finances themselves have long needed reorganization. As in the similar case of Santo Domingo, Nicaragua is deeply in debt. Her customs have been inadequately and dishonestly collected. Foreign creditors have long been pressing because there have not been enough funds wherewith to pay the interest on the debts. During the Taft Administration a treaty was proposed by which the United States Government should, as in the case of Santo Domingo, take the collecting of customs from local control (thus removing one of the chief incentives to revolution), and should itself supervise the collection of customs, so that foreign creditors might feel a security of payment of interest on their loans, and also so that the Nicaraguan Republic itself might be freed from any apprehension of intervention by creditor nations. On its part the Nicaraguan Government agreed not to alter the import or export duties during the existence of the loans. The Outlook approved this treaty and asked those who objected to it whether they were really acting progressively. the treaty did not pass the Senate.

Foreseeing failure in the effort to have this country take charge of its customhouses, Nicaragua voluntarily placed its custom-house administration in the hands of an American. This was nearly two years ago. The American was Colonel Clifford D. Ham, formerly of the Philippine Revenue Service. He was recommended by ex-President Taft. Colonel Ham has, without any change in the rates of duty, more than doubled the receipts -exactly the record made by our administration of the customs in Santo Domingo by the agent appointed under the Roosevelt Administration.

Moreover, the cost of collecting the import duties the chief source of Nicaraguan revenue has been as much as one-third of the amount annually collected! During the past two years, however, it has been reduced to

about one-twentieth of the amount collected. Such a fact is eloquent of what good government can do. Furthermore, the physical condition of some of the Nicaraguan industries has been startlingly changed. Deficiencies have given place to dividends.

The Nicaraguan Government has now obtained from Messrs. Brown Brothers & Co. and Messrs. J. & W. Seligman & Co., bankers of New York City, a loan at six per cent, the loan to be secured by a lien on the customs, subject only to existing liens.

Moreover, these bankers have bought fiftyone per cent of the stock of the National Bank of Nicaragua and a similar amount of the stock of the Pacific Railways of Nicaragua. The Bank has its head office at Managua, the capital, with branches at Bluefields, on the Atlantic, and Granada and Leon, important cities. The bank is the depository of the Government, and its issue department issues bank notes on the Government's behalf. Two members of its Board are nominated by the Nicaraguan Minister of Finance, and the American Secretary of State has the privilege of appointing one.

The currency system of Nicaragua has long been in chaos, but with the operation of the Bank of Nicaragua the currency has been put on a gold basis.

To maintain the gold standard an exchange fund is kept. To insure the permanent maintenance of this fund it is provided that whenever it is depleted below a certain point onefourth of the customs revenue is to be applied to it month by month until it is again replenished. Each time this process becomes effective it will by so much permanently strengthen the fund.

The plan of monetary reform was largely the work of the well-known expert Mr. Charles A. Conant, of New York. The proceeds arising from the sale of the bank and railway stock and the treasury bills issued by reason of the American loan have been applied to strengthening the currency fund.

Thus, with the credit facilities afforded by the National Bank, and the currency, which underlies credit, established on a firm basis, the most serious evils in the finances both of the Government and of the country have been remedied.

Should our Senate ratify the pending treaty with Nicaragua, the proposed payment of $3,000,000, as provided in that treaty, would put the Nicaraguan Government in a position where it could liquidate the greater part of

its local debts and claims and pay a steady and assured interest on its foreign debts.

As an indication of the opposition among some of the people of Salvador to any such treaty as that now proposed with Nicaragua, we may state that The Outlook has received what appears to be a circular letter from Federico Cenado " in behalf of the Salvadorian Committee of the National Central American Association." In this letter the writer asserts that the treaty is iniquitous, and that the people of Nicaragua and of whole Central America are solidly opposed," and charges that the loans made by American banks are "nothing more than the mere turning over to the Nicaraguan Government of the moneys previously collected in the Nicaraguan custom-houses, for which a rate of six per cent per annum is charged by the lenders of the loan."

THE MONROE DOCTRINE

The subject of the foreign debts of LatinAmerican states has to do with the Monroe Doctrine. If we are going to maintain that Doctrine-as we always have done and as we always shall do we must see that financial order is also maintained in the Latin-American states. We say in the Monroe Doctrine that European powers must not colonize or take land on the American continent. We cannot take this position unless we are prepared also to say to them that we will see that the rights of their citizens or subjects are protected in the countries affected by the Monroe Doctrine. In other words, we cannot sustain that Doctrine and play the part of the dog in the manger. We must maintain the independence and stability of government in the American republics.

Yet only recently, in contrast with the comment of other papers, the London "Standard" declared that the Monroe Doctrine was being elaborated into a "device" by which foreign financial and commercial enterprise in Central and South American countries may be attacked, and that “this latest development of the American policy as announced does not harmonize with the principle of equality of commercial opportunity." This was in rejoinder to a speech the night before by our Ambassador to England, Mr. Page, who has said: "No sort of financial control can, with the consent of the United States, be obtained ever those weaker nations which would, in effect, control their government." There was in this no threat to English or

any other foreign investments in Latin-Amer ican countries. Mr. Page simply paraphrased President Wilson's statement in his recent address at Mobile when he declared that government in Latin America by concessionaires would be looked upon unfavorably by the United States, intimating that adventurers who fought their way to temporary power in Latin-American republics solely to get a chance to loot government finances would not be recognized by this country.

This is a very different thing from what is supposed by the London " Standard." Financial scheming by foreign concessionaires has been at the bottom of many a Latin-American revolution, and has in some cases led to the capture of the executive power and the subservience of both the legislature and the judiciary. But to-day there are thousands of foreigners at work in Latin America, representing legitimate investments of millions of money, who are not interfering in the least with the governments of the various countries where they live and in which they are interested.

All America should, and does, welcome such workers and such investigations. They do not interfere with the Monroe Doctrine. Nor does our placing of one of the weakest states, like Nicaragua, on a proper financial basis interfere with that Doctrine; it strengthens it, for it assures to the particular state, to ourselves, and to all foreigners that which every right-thinking man should want to see the administrative, commercial, and territorial independence and stability of the particular state. To maintain the Monroe Doctrine we must see that order is kept in the Latin-American republics, so that their interests, our interests, and the interests of other countries there may be protected.

A CENTRAL AMERICAN PROTECTORATE ?

Certain newspapers have jumped at the conclusion that our Government intends to force a protectorate on all Central American countries. This has been denied, first, by the Government itself. It declares that no treaties similar to the proposed Nicaraguan treaty are under consideration or have ever been suggested in connection with any other Central American country. The newspaper assumption has also been repudiated by the Ministers at Washington of those countries supposed to be next to Nicaragua in our proposed absorption "-namely, Honduras and Salvador. The Ministers deny that the State Department has ever placed this idea before them.

In President Wilson's Mobile address he took pains to say what every American echoes that we have no wish to gain an additional foot of territory. In trying to help our weak neighbors we have no thought of territorial gain. Material gain will, it is true, accrue both to them and to us if our help is efficient, but the gain to us is entirely incidental, and has nothing to do with territory.

Nor do we wish, without increasing any territory, to govern other peoples. We have enough problems of that sort on our hands now without getting any more.

There is a far higher and finer help to be given by us than any help connected with land covetousness or political ambition. That help, in the case of Nicaragua, has already been given. It is a strictly moral help. It is that of the big neighbor state, which would help the small neighbor state to secure for itself a strong government and hence justice, which would help the small neighbor state to secure for itself a democratic government and hence liberty.

T

HE Southern Colorado coal-fields are located in the vicinity of Trinidad. They are leased and operated by the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and the Victor American Fuel Company. Altogether they employ about twenty-five thousand men. These are, for the most part, Greeks, Italians, Slavs, and Mexicans, only nineteen per cent being English-speaking people. Many of these were strike-breakers ten years ago. Until last summer only a small percentage were members of the union, but at that time officers of the United Mine Workers of America came into the district and rapidly organized the camps. Approximately onehalf of the men became affiliated with this organization. The following demands were made of the operators :

First, the right to check-weighmen selected by the miners themselves.

Second, the right to trade at stores other than company stores without molestation. Third, a bi-weekly pay day and the abolition of scrip payment.

Fourth, better working conditions.
Fifth, recognition of the union.

Sixth, ten per cent advance in wages.

Of these the operators claimed that the first and second had never been denied the miners that they were not greatly concerned about the manner of payment; that the fourth demand was of very general character, and is amply covered by statutes which have been obeyed by the companies that number five could not be considered; that they had recently granted a ten per cent advance in wages, and that the Colorado miners were the best paid coal-miners in the country. After more or less fruitless negotiations, a strike was called to take effect September 27.

The operators at once employed guards to protect their property. These men were

nearly all furnished by the Baldwin-Phelts Agency, some of whom had been for years similarly employed in other strikes. Some of the miners had participated in the same strikes; thus old antagonisms were brought into a situation sufficiently delicate without them. Among the twelve thousand miners there would be of course the usual percentage of criminals. Add to these conditions the idleness, confusion, and animosities incident to a strike, and the results could have been predicted with almost mathematical exact

ness.

The coal-fields are in the front range of foothills to the east of the Rocky Mountains. The camps are located in the narrow valleys and gorges between the hills. The strikers' tent colonies are as near their old places of employment as possible. Guards were placed at all company property and in rifle-pits in the adjacent hills. They were equipped with the very best rifles, machine guns, and searchlights. The strikers were in possession of many privately owned rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. One man has confessed to supplying four hundred men with guns. Some evidence of other consignments of guns has come to light. During the first month of the strike numerous battles took place between the strikers and the mine guards, in which several men were killed on both sides and some buildings burned or otherwise destroyed. The writer made quite a careful investigation for the purpose of discovering, if possible, who were the aggressors in these fights. The results indicate that the strikers were usually the attacking party, after more or less provocation by the mine guards. A man who holds a very responsible position with one of the companies said that they had had more trouble with their guards than with the strikers. This man asserted that the guards would provoke trouble in order to render

necessary the employment of more of their friends, or prevent their own discharge, as the operators would not continue the expense of retaining armed men after the situation ceased to demand it. In at least one instance it is asserted that the strikers provoked an attack by guards, during which they shot some men especially obnoxious to them.

On the 25th of October Governor Ammons ordered the militia to mobilize, and on the evening of the 27th orders were received to proceed to the strike district. The Governor's orders were to preserve order and disarm both sides. Since the arrival of the militia there has been practically no disorder, though the strikers have not generally obeyed the demand to surrender their arms. The work of disarming the company guards has been carried on in such manner that about the same proportion of the men on each side retain their arms.

Four days after the arrival of the militia five companies of infantry, one troop of cavalry, and one field battery were sent to Ludlow, a large coal camp thirty miles from headquarters at Trinidad, to receive the guns promised by the strikers and to be assigned to police and patrol duty at neighboring camps. At this place is located the largest of the tent colonies.

The writer is a member of one of the companies of infantry, and will not soon forget the impressive incidents which immediately succeeded the detraining of the troops. As we approached the town we found the strikers lined up on one side of the road wearing their working clothes, with picks, drills, and other tools indicating their trade on their shoulders. Many were carrying American flags. On the other side were the children, waving flags and singing patriotic songs, led by a band from the tent colony. We then marched by the tent colony, where these people were living on an allowance of two dollars and fifty cents per week for adults and fifty cents per week for children. To men who will do that for a cause their cause is a religion. We were then given "Halt!" and "At ease." A big soldier said to me, I got a big lump right here in my throat, and I ain't ashamed of it."

The militia have been distributed among the various mining camps and have met with no resistance. There has been no more disorder than might be expected to take place in any other section of the country having equal population. Some progress has been

made in securing the arms of the strikers. There have been several assassinations of. mine guards, but these were accompanied by no rioting.

stores.

On the whole, the demands of the miners are just. It is entirely probable that the operators have not refused openly to allow the men check-weighmen of their own choosing, nor compelled them to trade at company But it seems equally certain that they did both by indirect methods. As to general working conditions, judging from what can be seen outside and the frequent explosions and other accidents inside, the conditions are perhaps the worst in the country, notwithstanding the fact that the Colorado laws require nearly everything necessary to the safety and comfort of the miners. According to the operators, the men receive an average daily wage of $3.84. They neglect to state, however, that out of this the men must furnish themselves with powder and hand tools and keep their tools in repair.

The real bone of contention, however, is recognition of the union. It was evidently for the purpose of adding this district to its domain that the United Mine Workers of America sent its officers here last summer. The union officers demand that the mines be closed to all non-union men; that the dues, fines, etc., be collected through the office; that the men are to work under contract made by operators and unions. The operators claim that this would occasion a great deal of tedious and trying detail, and that a contract with the union would not be binding, as the union is not incorporated. They assert further that the refusal to join a union does not disqualify a man from becoming an employee of the mines.

This strike is demonstrating the criminal. folly of allowing mining companies, or other corporations, to police a whole district with irresponsible professional guards. It is the belief of many that there would have been less disorder and destruction of property if the situation had been left to the ordinary police powers of the State. The worst passions of the strikers are aroused by the very presence of these men on account of their participation in other strikes, notably the recent one in West Virginia.

The plan of sending the militia to the strike area has but one thing to recommend it: it was the only thing that could have been done under the circumstances. It is doubtful if any State in the Union could boast of