ernment may arise sufficiently stable to receive the claims of the foreigners who have suffered in person and estate during the long period of unrest.

Ignoring for the moment the greatest of the foreign claimants, the Americans, there are the Spaniards, in whose hands are the sugar and grocery trades and whose shops, all over the republic, have been looted and whose people have been robbed, tortured, murdered and expelled. Then come the French, who control the dry goods. trade and who are bankers and miners; the Germans, who have the hardware trades, mines and metallurgical works; the Belgians, railroad securities, and finally the English, as owners or mortgagees of the Mexican, Interoceanic, Tehuantepec, Southern, North-Western and National railroads, oil wells and refineries at Tampico and in Vera Cruz and ranches and industrial establishments all over the country. ALL these foreign claimants have suffered spoilation, robbery, insult and murder and all are holders of Mexican securities on which default has been made.

The time will come when the claims for damage will be demanded. Can Mexico pay without intolerant taxation, which impost, will engender further revolutions? Can Mexico pay the bill at all? It is doubtful.

The situation today is practically identical with that of 1861 when the Convention was held in London and the claims against Mexico were urged by the governments of France, England and Spain for losses of their subjects.

The result was, even as today, that Vera Cruz was occupied not by Americans but by the allied forces of France, England and Spain in support of the allies' demand for the payment of claims.

The United States offered to assume Mexico's indebtedness and England and Spain withdrew, but the United States were then in the toils of civil war and the security did not satisfy Napoleon III and French troops were landed, notwithstanding the Monroe Doctrine, and there followed the Franco-Mexican intervention, and the Emperor, Maximillian.

In the meantime the American claimants are heard from and in no uncertain tones demand that the Washington government protect them and that their interests do not suffer in competition with the NON AMERICAN foreign claimants. One of three courses must be taken by the United States: First, They may refuse to entertain any proposition whatever from the non-American foreign claimants, leaving them free to make their naval demonstration, land their troops, occupy the custom houses and collect their claims. If with their refusal the United States declare that such landing and occupation would be construed as unfriendly acts, and the unfriendly acts were committed there would result practically a case of war with the allied claimants. Second: The United States might approve of the joint occupation, take part in the naval demonstration and receive a due share of the customs receipts.

In both of these two cases, involving either joint or non American foreign intervention in Mexico, that would be the last of the Monroe doctrine and the partition of Latin America among the nations of Europe would follow as a matter of course and at their convenience. The Japanese could establish themselves at Magdalena Bay, the Germans at some desirable Central American point and a few European regiments would make short work of taking the Panama Canal by attacking on the land side and holding one of the Pacific locks.

But one other course remains, the American occupation of Mexico and the payment of all foreign claimants with money advanced by the United States. No partial or temporary occupation will be enough,—we tried that sixty odd years ago, but all of it and permanently. But that would mean a war of aggression and Mr. Wilson has said that he is opposed to wars of aggression and when he said it he undoubtedly meant it. Even so, but Mr. Wilson's mind is easily changed and if he remains obdurate his successor will be chosen in 1916 and a candidate standing on a platform of complete and permanent occupation of Mexico would sweep the country.

Occupation is the only solution and it is most desired by the Mexicans themselves. The Mexican working man, mechanic, miner, or peon would get a white man's wages. The land question would solve itself, the great holdings being subdivided and sold to foreign immigrants. A great influx of foreigners from Europe and the United States would change the complexion of the people and they would control the country's politics. About three million blondes would turn the trick.

As to the principles of international law involved, they are neither numerous nor complicated. Wherever territory is occupied by a weaker nation who misgoverns that territory or for any reason its further occupancy runs counter to the interests of a stronger nation who covets its possession, the territory must be surrendered. This is the history of universal spoilation during the past century and the victims have been Turks, Chinese, Koreans, Apaches, Africans, Seminoles, Poles, Arabs, Egyptians, Boers, Moors, Maoris, Modocs and Mexicans.

CHAPTER II.

"Regular troops alone are equal to the exigencies of modern war, as well for defense, as offense, and where a substitute is attempted, it must prove illusory and ruinous.

"No militia will ever acquire the habits necessary to resist a regular force. The firmness requisite for the real business of fighting is only to be obtained by a constant course of discipline and service.

"It is most earnestly to be desired, that the liberties of America may no longer be trusted, in a material degree, to so precarious a defense."-Washington.

"Our mobile army is so ridiculously small in the world's war game, that it amounts to nothing better than a discard!"-Adna R. Chaffee, Lieutenant Gen. U. S. Army, Retired.

"The frontiers of states are either rivers or mountains or deserts. Of all these obstacles to the march of an army, the most difficult to overcome is the desert. Mountains come next and broad rivers occupy the third place.” -Napoleon.

HINDSIGHT BETTER THAN FORESIGHT.

The evolution of warfare is kaleidoscopic, so also are armaments and conditions.

Preparedness in a conflict with Mexico, for instance, would materially differ from factors governing preparations for war with a first class military power.

*"Whenever a nation's attitude towards war is evasive, its conduct indecisive and its preparation an indifferent, orderless assembling of forces, it prepares for defeat.

"There is always certainty in determining a Nation's probable adversaries, within such periods of time, as to permit preparedness, the adoption of armaments to specific purposes and defined theatre of war."

If the trained mind searches into the technicalities of the strategical and military situation of the United States, logical conclusions of an unbiased nature would undermine the existing vanity of its alleged strength and efficiency. To assume that the United States at this time could repulse a first class power invading the Pacific coast is fallacious and it would be well to prepare against such a contingency.

To imagine the country, in a state of unpreparedness, could defend itself against a prepared power is illusory. The money power, no matter how great, would be of no effect, for the reason, that under present conditions it would take two years to obtain adequate war material and one year, at least, to train and discipline men. The raw material for the making of an army is here, but raw material is in most instances, less valuable than the finished product, so the two years in question would be the ne plus ultra of the effort to defend an extended and vigorous attack with modern equipment. The ease with which this mosaic of empires has grown opulent is the cause of its ascent to heights of mistaken military heroics, the absurdity of which is only realized in the War Department, and also thoroughly recognized by the military attaches and heads of foreign embassies at Wash

*Homer Lea.