CANADIAN EXPANSI N.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 January 1928, Page 4

CANADIAN EXPANSI N.

CANA DIAN-HRITJSH EMPIRE L\ CARIBBEAN.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20. Plans are on foot for the amalgamation under Canadian guidance of all British possessions in the Western Hemisphere, forming what might he called a British Empire of America. This report, cumulating from ]>olitical friends of Mackenzie King’s recently in Washington, is being studied with considerable interest in Washington circles. Americans here are quite frankly looking a ittle askance at flic idea of being entirely surrounded by Great Britain. They are quite reconciled to having Canada oil Hie north, they sav, hut a small scale British Empire of amalgamated Caribbean countries hemming them in on the south is another matter.

The Caribbean countries, including Central America, are the most sacred point in the foreign policy of the United States. In fact, the United States may he said to have no foreign policy other than one of opportunism, except where the Caribbean is concerned. In the Caribbean the policy is fixed and unswerving and has been so ever since the days of James Monroe and his famous doctrine. That policy is complete protection for the Panama Cana! and the prevention of foreign domination over any of the adjacent countries in Central America or in the islands nearby. This policy is dictated b.v the necessity of moving the American Navy from the Atlantic to Pacific, or vice versa, in time of war. and by the ease with which enemy submarine nests might operate off the coasts of Central America or off am* of the Caribbean Islands. BRITAIN’S RIG HOLD.

Great Britain happens to have a sizeable group of islands in this area. If you look at the map of the waters south ol the Tinted States and around the Panama Canal, you canii.it help hut he impressed first by Hie fact that Great Ilritain is the only European power that owns any territory besides two infinitesimal French islands; second, by the fact that Great Britain own- la:* more Caribbean terrnor than the United States. In fact., the British "West Indies consist ol a chain of islands spread out like a fan around the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal, from the Bahamas near the Florida Coast, to British Guiana on the mainland of South America. Of these, Jamaica is the largest and most important, with the asphr.lt and petroleum islands of Trinidad and Tobago, almost equallv so. and the coral reefs of the Leeward and W iiidwnrd Islands, important for strategic reasons. In addition to these and the infinitisimnl islands of Bermuda, Turk’s Head, and Caicos, Great Britain owns a piece of Central American mainland—British Honduras. Many of these islands were British before the United States became the United States, and although the Wash ington Government has had opportunities to buy them, there has never been any desire to increase American territory in the Caribbean. However, the prospective amalgamation of these possessions into a British unit under Canadian guidance is considered to create i new situation.

CANADA’S GROWING INFLUENCE According to authentic reports received here, negotiations are already underway for the substitution of a Canadian for a British Government in British Honduras. ,I’rado between Canada and British Honduras has increased nearly four times in the last five years. Canadian political leaders who were in Washington recently reported that this move was backed by the Baldwin Cabinet, which was anxious to see Canada extend its guidance. if not actually its government, throughout all British Caribbean countries.

It is understood that the recent trip of F. C. T. O’Hara, Deputy Canadian Minister of Commerce and Trade through the Caribbean had this linkup partially in view.

Washington officials arc also much interested in the growing trade relations between Canada and the Caribbean. Canadian sales to Colombia doubled between 1922 and 1927. rising from a value of approximately 300.OOfklol. to about TOO.OnOdol. In'Haiti they have trebled, and in Costa Rica, Salvador, and the Dominican Republic, they have increased notably, rising in the latter country from a value of' 4,060,910d01. to 6.79i.339d01. In Honduras (exclusive of British Honduras'!. where there wore practically no Canadian sales up until 1923, imports from Canada have reached the GOO.OOOdoI. mark, and ai-e steadily ris-

The most important petroleum company in the Caribbean, it is also pointed out in Washington, is the “British Controlled Oilfields. Ltd.,” hacked entirely by Canadian capital and with more or less of a monopoly in Venezuo-

Tt is further pointed out here that the Canadian steamship line of Gov-ernment-owned vessels, linking Canada with British possessions in the West Indies, is a step in the amalgamation of the Empire in Imork'i while the reception which has just been given Sir Henry Thornton, executive of the Canadian National Railroad, when ho arrived in Mexico City to reorganise the Mexican railways is taken as a barometer of the friend ship which Latin Americans feel fcCanadians and the growing community of spirit between the two peoples