These activities have not applied to Mexico alone. It is significant that twice in February of this year the Venezuelan Government has declined to approve of the request of President Wilson that other neutral nations join him in breaking diplomatic relations with Germany as a protest against submarine warfare, and that many Venezuelan papers have stated that this refusal is due to the representations of resident Germans, who are many and influential. These are, of course, legitimate activities, but they are in every case attended by a threat. Revolutions are easily begun in Latin America, and the obstinate government can always be brought to a reasonable viewpoint by the example of recent uprisings or revolutions, financed by Germany, in Costa Rica, Peru and Cuba. Within a very recent time, rumors were afloat in Venezuela that Germany was assisting General Cipriano Castro in the revolutionary movement that he had been organizing in Porto Rico. It was reported that there were on the Colombian frontier many disaffected persons who would gladly join Castro if he landed in Colombia and marched on Caracas, as he did successfully in 1890. For several years the Telefunken Co., a German corporation, has tried to obtain from the Venezuelan Government a concession to operate a wireless plant, which should be of greater power than any other in South America. When this proposal was last made, certain ministers were for accepting it, but the majority of the Government realized the uses to which the plant could be put and refused to grant the concession. An alternative proposal, made by the Government, to establish a station of less strength, was rejected by the company. Germany has steadily sought such wireless sites throughout this region. Several have been established in Mexico, and in 1914 it was through a wireless station in Colombia, that the German Admiral von Spee was enabled to keep informed of the movements of the squadron of Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock—information which resulted in the naval battle in Chilean waters with a loss of three British battleships. It was after this battle that Colombia ordered the closing of all wireless stations on its coasts.