PANAMA CANAL. 



721 



United States seek any exclusive or narrow commer- 

 cial advantage. It frankly agrees, and will by public 

 proclamation declare, at the proper time, in conjunc- 

 tion with the republic on whose soil the canal may be 

 located, that the same rights and privileges, the same 

 tolls and obligations for the use of the canal, shall 

 apply with absolute impartiality to the merchant ma- 

 rine of every nation on the globe : and equally, in 

 time of peace, the harmless use of the canal shall be 

 freely granted to the war-vessels of other nations. In 

 time of war, aside from the defensive use to be made 

 of it by the country in which it is constructed and by 

 the United States, the canal shall be impartially closed 

 against the war-vessels of all belligerents. It is the 

 desire and determination of the United States that the 

 canal shall be used only for the development and in- 

 crease of peaceful commerce among all the nations, 

 and shall not be considered a strategic point in war- 

 fare, which may tempt the aggressions or belligerents, 

 or be seized under the compulsions of military neces- 

 sity by any of the great powers that may have contests 

 in which the United States has no stake, and will take 

 no part. If it be asked why the United States objects 

 to the assent of European governments to the terms 

 of the neutrality for the operation of the canal, my 

 answer is that the right to assent implies the right to 

 dissent, and thus the whole question would be thrown 

 open for contention as an international issue. It is 

 the fixed purpose of the United States to confine it 

 strictly and solely as an American question to be dealt 

 with and decided by the American governments. 



The communication of Mr. Elaine to Mr. 

 Lowell, in November, had presumably the sup- 

 port of President Arthur, who, in his first mes- 

 sage to Congress, on December 6th, said : 



The questions growing out of the proposed inter- 

 oceanic water-way across the Isthmus of Panama are 

 of grave national importance. This Government has 

 not been unmindful of the solemn obligations imposed 

 upon it by its compact of 1846 with Colombia, as the 

 independent and sovereign mistress of the territory 

 crossed by the canal, and has sought to render them 

 effective by fresh engagements with the Colombian 

 Republic, looking to their practical execution. The 

 negotiations to this end, after they had reached what 

 appeared tip be a mutually satisfactory solution here, 

 were met in Colombia by a disavowal of the powers 

 which its envoy had assumed, and by a proposal for 

 renewed negotiation on a modified basis. Meanwhile 

 this Government learned that Colombia had proposed 

 to the European powers to join in a guarantee of the 

 neutrality of the proposed Panama Canal, a guarantee 

 which would be in direct contravention of our obliira- 

 tion as the sole guarantor of the integrity of Colombian 

 territory, and of the neutrality of the canal itself. My 

 lamented predecessor felt it his duty to place before 

 the European powers the reasons which make the 

 prior guarantee of the United States indispensable, 

 and for which the interjection of any foreign guarantee 

 might be regarded as a superfluous and unfriendly act. 

 Foreseeing the probable reliance of the British Gov- 

 ernment on the provisions of the Clayton-Bui wer treaty 

 of 1850, as affording room for a share in the guarantees 

 which the United States covenanted with Colombia 

 four years before, I have not hesitated to supplement 

 the action of my predecessor, by proposing to her 

 Majesty's Government the modification of that instru- 

 ment, and the abrogation of such clauses thereof as do 

 not comport with the obligations of the United States 

 toward Colombia, or with the vital needs of the two 

 friendly parties to the compact. 



Under date of January 7, 1882, Lord Gran- 

 ville addressed a communication to Mr. West, 

 the British Minister at Washington, in reply 

 to Mr. Blaine's proposition for a modification 

 of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. Ho maintained 

 that Great Britain had pursued no such policy 

 VOL. xxi. 46 A 



in regard to the Suez Canal ns was attributed 

 to it by the ex-Secretary of State, and as was 

 proposed on the part of the United States in 

 regard to the Nicaragua route. u The Navy 

 Department of the United States," he said, 

 must be well aware that her Majesty's Govern- 

 ment have never sought to bar or even to re- 

 strict the use of the canal by the naval forces 

 of other countries, and that during the recent 

 war between Russia and Turkey, when the 

 canal itself formed a portion of the territory 

 of one of the belligerents, when the seat of 

 conflict was close at hand, and when British 

 interests might in many other respects have 

 been nearly involved, they contented them- 

 selves with obtaining an assurance that the 

 sphere of operations should not be extended to 

 the canal." He combated the idea that the 

 development of American interests on the 

 Pacific coast had not been anticipated at the 

 time the treaty was made. He continued : 



While recognizing to the fullest degree the extent 

 to which the United States must feel interested in 

 any canal which may be constructed across the I>th- 

 mus of Panama, her Majesty's Government would be 

 wanting in regard to their duty if they failed to point 

 out that Great Britain has large colonial possessions, 

 no less than great commercial interests, which render 

 any means of unobstructed and rapid access from the 

 Atlantic to the North and South Pacific Oceans a 

 matter for her also of the greatest importance. Tho 

 development of these possessions and interests has 

 steadily continued, possibly with less rapidity, but on 

 a scale which has some relation even to that of the 

 Pacific States. 



Her Majesty's Government do not wish to ignore 

 the share which other nations have acquired in the 

 commerce of Central and South America, nor to ex- 

 clude from consideration the interest of those coun- 

 tries in any canal which may be made across the Isth- 

 mus. They are of opinion that such a canal, between 

 two great oceans and between all Eurojx? and Eastern 

 Asia, is a work which concerns not merely the United 

 States or the American Continent, but the whole 

 civilized world. This is a view which finds expres- 

 sion in the eighth article of the treaty of 1850. Her 

 Majesty's Government are as anxious as that of the 

 United States that while all nations should enjoy their 

 proper share in the benefits to be expected from the 

 undertaking, no single country should acquire a pre- 

 dominating influence or control over such a means of 

 communication, and they will not oppose or decline 

 any discussion for the purpose of securing on a general 

 international basis its universal and unrestricted use. 

 With all deference to the considerations which have 

 prompted the proposals made in Mr. Blaine's dispatch, 

 her Majesty's Government can not lclieve that they 

 would promote the object or bo beiu-neial in thenf- 

 selves. Tho relations of the United States with the 

 European powers are, fortunately, of a nature to give 

 rise to no reelings of suspicion or alarm. The gen. ml 

 tendency of their foreign policy irhvs go.,,1 promise 

 that they will so continue. But it' \ : to bo 



made on one side t'>ra<Htfi rent state of affair*, it must 

 be expected that the course thus indicated will find 

 its natural and logical counterpart on the other. Her 

 Majesty's Government can conceive no more melan- 

 choly spectacle than a competition BIH-II.' the nations 

 holding West Indian possessions an<l other- on the 

 Central and South American Ointment in the con- 

 struction of fortifications to obtain the command over 

 the canal ainliN approaches in the event of occasion 

 arising for such a measure. They am not Wlk'vc 

 that it would be agreeable or convenient to any South 

 American state through which the canal may pass to 



