THE advance of American business interests into Central and South America has now reached a point where it may soon become necessary to formulate a policy as momentous as the Monroe Doctrine itself. This new policy is now in the making. The problem which it is meant to solve is the conflict between the vested rights of Americans in the natural resources of the Caribbean countries and the rising nationalism of their peoples. The problem could not have arisen before Americans had acquired titles to important properties and had invested large sums of money in developing them; nor could the problem have arisen while government of these countries was in the hands of a ruling class which conceived its interests to be those of the foreign owners of natural resourceful
