Argentina's New Move

ARGENTINA'S NEW MOVE

Endorses Monroe Doctrine and Suggests Its Extension

TO GUARD WEAK DEBTOR NATIONS

First South American Country to Join the United States in Facing European Powers - No Alliance Proposed by Argentine Republic. Secretary Hay Noncommittal. 

At the legation of the Argentine Republic in Washington there was given out the other night a statement denying that that government had asked for an alliance with the United States in connection with its recent vote on some features of the Venezuelan incident, says the New York Press. This statement is of importance because it shows, first, that Argentina is the first South American country to endorse formally the Monroe doctrine and, second, that she asks Secretary Hay to recognize an extension of that doctrine. After making the denial which has been mentioned the statement continues:

"In fact to dispatch of Dr. Drago, minister of foreign relations of the Argentine Republic, aimed only to explain to his diplomatic agent in Washington the views of his home government relative to the coercive collection of public debts of American states by European nations and instructed him to convey those views to Secretary Hay, expressing his hope that the doctrine of international public law set forth by the Argentine government should prove acceptable to the United States.

"Taking into consideration the real character of many of the obligations contracted by the governments of the junior South American republics, the Argentine government has felt that there is greater danger to the peace of the continent if the compulsory demand of immediate payment of public debts or national obligations is to be accepted in silence without discrimination as a right of the stronger powers of Europe to control and dominate the weaker and struggling states of Central and South America.

"On this point the Argentine minister of foreign relations in his note remarks that the capitalist who supplies any money to a foreign state always takes into consideration the resources or the country and the more or less probabilities that the obligations will be filled without difficulty. Dr. Drago says further on this: 'The compulsory and immediate demand for payment at a given moment of a public debt by means of force would not produce other than the ruin of the weaker nations and the absorption of their governments altogether, with all its inherent faculties, by the powerful nations of the earth.'

"Dr. Drago also cites communications by Hamilton and provisions of the constitution of the United States in this connection. Dr. Drago explicitly disclaims any intention to defend bad faith or irregularities and deliberate and voluntary insolvency.

" 'We do not pretend, neither can we pretend,' he says, 'that these nations shall occupy an exceptional position in their relations with the European powers, who have the undoubted right to protest their subjects as amply as in any other part of the globe against prosecution or from any injustice they may have been victims of. The only thing that the Argentine Republic maintains is the principle already accepted that there cannot be European territorial expansion in America or oppression of the people of this continent because their unfortunate financial condition might oblige one of them to put off the fulfillment of its obligation. The principle which we maintain is that a public debt cannot give rise to an armed intervention and much less to the territorial occupation of the soil of American nations by any European power.'

"Complying with his instructions. Minister Merou left a copy of the communication received from his minister of foreign relations with the secretary of state. In his reply Mr. Hay did not express assent or dissent to the doctrine of public law set forth in the note of the Argentine minister of foreign relations. He cited the minister to the messages of the president of Dec. 3. 1901, and Dec. 2, 1902.

"Secretary Hay stated further that 'advocating and adhering in practice In questions concerning itself to the resort of international arbitration in settlement of controversies not adjustable by the orderly treatment of diplomatic negotiation. The Government of the United States would always be glad to see questions of the justice of claims by one state against another growing out of Individual wrongs or national obligations, as well as the guarantees for the execution of whatever award may be made, left to the decision of an impartial arbitration tribunal, before which the litigant nations, weak and strong alike, may stand as equals in the eye of international law and mutual duty.'

"One of the most important features of the Argentine note is the recognition and endorsement given by the government of that republic to the Monroe doctrine, whIch for the first time is acknowledged and accepted as a principle of American public law by a nation of South America."