A general European interest would be involved.

The United States might well find her policy of America for the Americans result in an attempt on the part of a European coalition to bring about a really effectual isolation.

We might find ourselves involved in a war against a substantially united Europe.

Such a danger seems sufficiently remote at present; but in the long run a policy which carries isolation too far is bound to provoke justifiable attempts to break it down.

If Europe and the Americas are as much divided in political interest as the Monroe Doctrine seems to assert, the time will inevitably arrive when the two divergent political systems must meet and fight; and plenty of occasions for such a conflict will arise, as soon as the policy of isolation begins to conflict with the establishment of that political relation between Europe and South America demanded by fundamental economic and social interests.