148 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



have no weight as an argument in this discussion. If Great 

 Britain could gain control of the canal, to the injury and 

 prejudice of the United States, it would not be by virtue of 

 any provisions in the Clayton-Bui wer treaty, but by reason of 

 her superior naval strength, a fact lying wholly outside 

 the issue in question. On the contrary, the very obligations 

 from which Mr. Blaine sought relief, being equally binding 

 upon both governments, prevented the " control " of England 

 over the canal. The treaty called for a joint guarantee of 

 neutrality a guarantee, it must be remembered, which tied 

 England's hands, as well as our own. There is no pardonable 



txcuse for avoiding a contract because of the superior 

 trength of one of the parties. 



The claim to priority on the American continent, and to 

 that position of vantage which gives to the United States a 

 greater right in the management of all the political ventures 

 in the Western Hemisphere, is a claim only to be upheld by 

 military strength ; such asserted right can be maintained 

 only by force it cannot be supported in the law. If this 

 argument of Mr. Blaine were to be brought forward as a 

 positive finale of the discussion, it could only indicate that 

 the United States had decided to abandon its ty pledges, 

 to assert its control of the canal, and the: ^and by the 

 consequences. But Mr.. Blaine had no intention of thus 

 conveying an ultimatum to Great Britain ; his argument con- 

 cealed no threat, it was made solely in the hope that it 

 might convince the British Minister that England's interests 

 I were not sufficiently important to give her any part in the 

 I maintenance of an open waterway connecting the Atlantic 

 and Pacific oceans. As such, it could only be considered a 

 i political argument, possessing but little of legal force. 



The exposition of Great Britain's position along the route 

 to India, and her alleged control of the Suez Canal, as an 

 argument for a similar course to be followed by the United 

 States, along her route from the East to the West, was not 

 sufficiently grounded on fact, even had it been relevant, to 

 invest it with argumentative force. At that time the neu- 

 tralization of the Suez Canal had not been thoroughly effected, 



