to be exempted from land reform laws, and mineral and oil rights conceded to Americans and exploited before May 1, 1917, were to be respected. In other words, the Mexican nationalization program would apply only to properties acquired since 1917. Further, the claims of the United States for a huge sum as damages for injuries done to Americans and their property during the tumultuous years 1910 to 1920, and the claims of Mexico for damages caused by the occupation of Vera Cruz and by the Pershing expedition, were to be settled by mixed commissions.1 On these terms Obregon purchased recognition in 1923.

Hardly had these amicable arrangements been made when a new rebellion flared up in Mexico. Its leader, de la Huerta, a former member of Obregon's cabinet, may have been actuated solely by personal ambition; he claimed to be fighting against Obregon's attempts to interfere with freedom of election; but he was generally regarded as the candidate of the conservatives, who desired that landowners should be indemnified for confiscated estates, and that labor radicalism should be checked. It was also alleged by Obregon that de la Huerta's rebellion was backed by British oil interests, particularly by El Aguila (The Mexican Eagle Co., controlled by the Royal Dutch-Shell combine); if this be true, it is worth noting that an American oil magnate, Mr. Doheny, lent Obregon five million dollars to suppress the revolt, and that the Huasteca company, a subsidiary of Mr. Doheny's Mexican Petroleum Company, received recognition of its claims to most of the Juan Felipe Hacienda, a rich oil tract in the state of Vera Cruz.

Mexico, it may be inferred, continued to be a battleground not only for Mexican radicals and conservatives, agrarians and hacendados, clericals and anticlericals, but also for Mr. Doheny's "Mexican Pete" (American), and Standard Oil, and Mexican Eagle (Anglo-Dutch). When the Royal Dutch-Shell had bought out Lord Cowdray's interest in the Mexican Eagle in 1918, and in 1925 the Standard Oil Company of Indiana bought up a controlling interest in the Doheny companies-Mexican Petroleum and the Pan-American Petroleum and Transport-the battle lines were more clearly drawn, between the greatest American oil combine and the powerful Anglo-Dutch syndicate. The magnitude of the battle may be gauged by the capital investment 1 Amer. Jour. Int. Law, 1924, Supplement, pp. 143 ff.

in the Mexican oil industry, which was estimated by the Mexican Department of Industry in 1923 at about 525 million dollars (of which 57.7% was American ownership, 33.8% British, and less than 2% Mexican). In 1924 the United States Department of Commerce issued a semi-official estimate placing the American investment in Mexican oil lands and refineries at 478 millions. And in 1925 a Wall Street firm put the figure as high as 700 millions. Mr. Doheny in 1924 gave the amount of his own interests in Mexico as $218,000,000.1

It must never be forgotten, however, that the Mexican and United States governments are parties in the contest. Under President Calles, who succeeded Obregon in 1924, a new crisis was precipitated by the enactment of Mexican oil and land laws. The oil law reaffirmed the inalienable national dominion over petroleum resources and required foreigners to comply with article 27 of the Constitution and seek confirmation, within one year, for concessions, leases and titles acquired prior to May 1, 1917. The land law established a "prohibited zone" of 100 kilometers from the international boundaries and 50 kilometers from the seacoasts, within which zone aliens cannot acquire lands, even as shareholders in a Mexican company. Aliens who now have such lands, however, may hold them until their death; aliens may acquire lands or mining concessions in the interior by becoming members of a Mexican company, renouncing all right to invoke the protection of their own governments, and holding their property on the same footing as Mexicans. Against this legislation there was a sharp outcry in the United States. Taking up the diplomatic cudgels for American interests, the United States Government entered protests against the new laws. What

1 New York Times, March 3, 1924. The following list of ten leading companies producing oil in Mexico may be of interest. Production for 1921 is shown in millions of barrels, with percentages in parentheses.

Huasteca Petroleum Co. (Doheny, sold to Standard in 1925) 28.7 (15%) Transcontinental Petroleum Co. (Stand. of N. J.).

El Aguila or Mexican Eagle (Royal Dutch-Shell)

Mexican Gulf Oil Co. (Mellon)

Agwi Oil Co. (Atlantic Gulf)

Texas Co...

25.5 (13%)

25.5 (13%) 13.7 (7%) 12.1(6%) 11.3 (6%) 10.0 (5%)

International Petroleum Co. (Sinclair interests)

Island Oil and Transport Co...

8.9 (5%)

(The table is compiled from data supplied by Mrs. Marsh.)

the outcome will be was not clear when these pages were written.1

NORTH AMERICAN INTERESTS IN SOUTH AMERICA

In South America the United States has been less vitally interested than in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean islands, yet there has been some interest, especially in the countries bordering the Caribbean Sea, namely, Colombia and Venezuela. Colombia, after Roosevelt's maneuver with Panama, long cherished bitter resentment and showed preference to British capital in granting oil and other concessions. On one occasion, in 1913, Lord Cowdray had almost in his grasp a big concession for oil development, railways and harbor works in Colombia, when in deference to the Wilson Doctrine he dropped the negotiations. This incident revealed the importance of conciliating Colombia. Moreover, President Wilson sincerely desired to right the wrong which had been done to Colombia in 1903, and which had embittered the feelings of many South Americans toward the United States. Accordingly, on April 6, 1914, the American minister to Colombia signed a treaty expressing "sincere regret" for the Panama incident, and promising to Colombia twenty-five million dollars.2 The Senate, however, was reluctant to ratify a treaty which seemed to reflect so censoriously on a previous administration. Roosevelt, indeed, scornfully referred to the document as a "blackmail treaty. But seven years later, after Wilson had been replaced by Harding, a Republican Senate ratified the treaty, omitting the "sincere regret' clause. It has been alleged, but not definitely established, that ratification was in part due to the oil interests which in other matters proved to be so influential with the Harding administration. Probably the desire in Washington to conciliate Latin-American opinion in general was an important, if not the primary, reason for the payment of so large a sum to Colombia. It cannot be disputed, however, that Ameri

For the new laws, see N. Y. Nation, 121, No. 3137, pp. 215-216, and Diario Official, Dec. 31, 1925, and Jan. 21, 1926.

'Foreign Relations, 1914, pp. 163-4.

Fear God and Take Your Own Part.

State Papers, 1921, pp. 678-682. Ratifications were exchanged March 1, 1922.

'See The New York Times, March 14, 1921, Washington dispatch.

can capital was very active in the oilfields, platinum mines and banana plantations,' nor is it difficult to foresee that as the oil industry develops in Colombia a problem similar to, though simpler than, the Mexican problem will develop with it.

Venezuela has been allowed to have its dictators and revolutions without interference, as American economic interests in this country have been relatively insignificant, although quite recently prospects have opened up of important mineral and oil development.

The Lago Petroleum Company, organized in 1923, secured eight thousand square miles of oil land and soon became the largest producer in Venezuela; in 1925 it was acquired by a subsidiary of the Indiana Standard Oil, which had recently purchased control of the Doheny companies in Mexico and appeared to be launching a campaign, with the support of New York financiers, to win a dominant position in the oil lands of the Caribbean area. The chief opponent of the Standard, here as in Mexico, was the Royal Dutch-Shell combine, controlled by an Anglo-Dutch syndicate.

Being on the Caribbean Sea, moreover, Venezuela is of considerable strategic interest and may be said to fall within the American sphere of influence. Fear that Great Britain intended to extend British Guiana by encroaching on Venezuela led in 1895 to the celebrated Olney version of the Monroe Doctrine, referred to above, and to Cleveland's threat of war. Again in 1902-3 the United States stepped forward to protect Venezuela, this time against an attempt on the part of Germany, Great Britain, and Italy to collect debts by means of naval blockade. Great Britain and Italy amiably withdrew their ships, but only a threat by President Roosevelt to send the American battle fleet to the scene could convince the German Government that it would not be permitted to gain even a leased port in

1 Dunn, op. cit., pp. 74-78. Standard Oil has acquired the most important oil concessions (the De Mares concession, held by the Tropical Oil Co. of Pittsburgh). The platinum mines are worked by the South American Gold and Platinum Company, of which Mr. Adolph Lewisohn is president. The Government's finances were reorganized by Professor Kemmerer, of Princeton, in 1923. In 1926 it was announced that Colombia was negotiating with New York bankers for a loan of $45,000,000, to retire old bonds and to inaugurate a program of railway construction which will involve an expenditure of $100,000,000.

Venezuela. It was on this occasion that Luis Drago, Argentine foreign minister, proposed what is known as the Drago Doctrine, namely, that European powers must not use armed force to collect debts in Latin America. This Doctrine, we may as well add, was approved by a Pan-American Conference in 1906, and, in modified form, by thirty-nine nations at the Hague Conference of 1907. As modified, it condemned the use of force for the collection of public debts unless the debtor country refused arbitration or refused payment of claims established as just by an arbitration court.3

PAN-AMERICANISM

In the rest of South America the interest of the United States has been less vigorous. To be sure, the Monroe Doctrine applied originally and still applies to the entire southern continent, as well as to Central and North America, and the United States. would undoubtedly resent European or Asiatic encroachment on the independence or integrity of any of the Latin-American republics; but the United States has evinced no concern over the settlement of large numbers of Germans in Brazil, Italians in Argentine, and of some Japanese and Chinese in several countries, nor has the United States attempted to exercise south of the equator the veto on concessions or the same strict censorship of revolutions or the police power which have been asserted in the Caribbean region. Moreover, there has been a growing tendency in the United States to regard at least the progressive "ABC Powers" (Argentina, Brazil and Chile) as associates rather than protégés; it has even been proposed that these if not other South American nations should become partners with the United States in maintaining a modified Monroe Doctrine, a mutual guarantee of independence. President Wilson, notably, in his address at the second Pan-American Scientific Congress in 1916, proposed that the states of America unite "in guaran

1 Thayer, Life of John Hay, II, pp. 284-290; Roosevelt's version in Bishop, Theodore Roosevelt, I, pp. 221-9; Robertson, Hispanic-American Relations with the United States, pp. 114-121.

3

U. S. Foreign Relations, 1903, pp. 1 ff.

Robertson, op. cit., p. 128.

That is, political interest.

Dunn, op. cit., pp. 61-89.

On the important economic interests see