The greater part of the dispatch was taken up with a discussion of the bearing of the Monroe Doctrine upon the case and the most striking feature of it was that the Monroe Doctrine was appealed to by name. Mr. Olney's statement of the Monroe Doctrine is worthy of the most careful consideration as it was the fullest and most definite official construction of its meaning and scope that had been given to the world. He said: That America is in no part open to colonization, though the proposition was not universally admitted at the time of its first enunciation, has long been universally conceded. We are now concerned, therefore, only with that other practical application of the Monroe Doctrine the disregard of which by an European power is to be deemed an act of unfriendliness towards the United States. The precise scope and limitations of this rule cannot be too clearly apprehended. It does not establish any general protectorate by the United States over other American states. It does not relieve any American state from its obligations as fixed by international law, nor prevent any European power directly interested from enforcing such obligations or from inflicting merited punishment for the breach of them. It does not contemplate any interference in the internal affairs of any American state or in the relations between it and other American states. It does not justify any attempt on our part to change the established form of government of any American state or to prevent the people of such state from altering that form according to their own will and pleasure. The rule in question has but a single purpose and object. It is that no European power or combination of European powers shall forcibly deprive an American state of the right and power of self-government and of shaping for itself its own political fortunes and destinies. Lord Salisbury's reply to Mr. Olney was given in two dispatches of the same date, November 26, 1895, the one devoted to a discussion of the Monroe Doctrine, the other to a discussion of the rights of the controversy as between Great Britain and Venezuela. In the first dispatch Lord Salisbury argued that Mr. Olney's views went far beyond the scope of the Monroe Doctrine, that no attempt at colonization was being made, and that no political system was being imposed upon any state of South America. He also denied that the Monroe Doctrine was a part of international law, since it had not received the consent of other nations, and he utterly repudiated Mr. Olney's principle that "American questions are for American discussion." In the second dispatch of the same date Lord Salisbury enters fully into the rights of the controversy between Great Britain and Venezuela, controverting the arguments of the earlier part of Mr. Olney's dispatch, which he characterizes as _ex parte_.