Page 205 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

1 86 Preparedness for Naval War.

— and many of her own people seem to accept
the fact of her political isolation, though with
more or less of regret, — is there nothing sig-
nificant to us in that our attitude towards her
in the Venezuelan matter has not commanded
the sympathy of Europe, but rather the re-
verse? Our claim to enter, as of right, into a
dispute not originally our own, and concerning
us only as one of the American group of na-
tions, has been rejected in no doubtful tones
by organs of public opinion which have no
fondness for Great Britain. Whether any for-
eign government has taken the same attitude is
not known, — probably there has been no offi-
cial protest against the apparent admission of
a principle which binds nobody but the parties
to it. Do we ourselves realize that, happy as
the issue of our intervention has been, it may
entail upon us greater responsibilities, more
serious action, than we have assumed before ?
that it amounts in fact — if one may use a
military metaphor— to occupying an advanced
position, the logical result very likely of other
steps in the past, but which nevertheless im-
plies necessarily such organization of strength
as will enable us to hold it?