FOREIGN INTERPRETATION

Every minister and college editor from the Atlantic to the Pacific has accused President Coolidge of failure to pursue a definite policy toward Nicaragua. Even a reader of the tabloids could probably explain the grounds of their contention. Surely one gets no evidence of a consistent policy from the utterances of the State Department nor the official spokesman," nor even from the Republican journals of opinion which seek to interpret these Delphic utterances to a misled public.

But across the Atlantic they seem to understand our policy very well, and to find it remarkably consistent. "The London Times" finds in the Nicaraguan affair nothing to get much excited about. The United States is merely containing a program of unofficial annexation of the countries around the Caribean, which it is has followed for twenty years past. It is in the process of establishing a mandate over Nicaragua just as England, for instance, put Egypt under the thumb of the Colonial Office (the Times did not express itself just this way). London merely regards the unfortunate verbal gymnastics of the Washington administration necessary to hoodwink a people not educated to imperialism.

It is Admiral Degony of the French Navy, however, who credits the State Department with the most amazing and closely reasoned statecraft. He links Nicaragua with American imperialism, the Panama Canal, possible war with Japan, and the late disarmament proposals. In his article, "La Canal du Nicaragua ot La Strategie Americaine" in the "Revue des Deux Mondes", March 15, he traces point by point the true basis for the administration's disarmament proposals. They were not put forth, it appears, to throw the public scent off Central America nor in a moment of misdirected pacifist feeling. Not at all

1. The Panama Canal is extremely vulnerable.

2. Japan has submarines with an 11,000 mile cruising radius, which are a menace to the canal.

3. The United States must build a Nicaraguan canal immediately.

4. Great Britain fears French submarines and light craft.

5. Therefore Washington proposes reduction of light armaments, with the double motive of gaining the support of Great Britain and staving off danger from Japan until the Nicaraguan Canal shall be built.

All this is very plausible and rather a surprise to us; it may be also a surprise to the President and State Department, who can tell?