THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 155 



protectorate is therefore exclusive in its character, and should 

 Great Britain claim, under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, a 

 right to join the United States in the protection of this 

 route, " the United States would submit that experience has 

 shown that no such joint protectorate is requisite ; that the 

 Clayton-Bulwer treaty is subject to the provisions of the 

 treaty of 1846," between the United States and Colombia. 



Furthermore, the United States having successfully exer- 

 cised her protectorate over the Panama Railroad route, for 

 upward of thirty years, during the most turbulent times, 

 Great Britain has no right, at this late date, to demand any 

 share in the guarantee of any canal hereafter to be built 

 across the isthmus. 



In conclusion, Mr. Frelinghuysen maintained that both his- 

 tory and theory support him in his position against a joint 

 protectorate with Great Britain over the Panama transit 

 route, and finally that the United States cannot take part in 

 extending an invitation to the powers of the world to co- 

 operate with them upon the basis of the Clayton-Bulwer 

 treaty ; and that the United States " would look with disfavor 

 upon any attempt at a concert of political action by other 

 powers in that direction." 



This letter of Mr. Frelinghuysen is, perhaps, the best ex- 

 position of the American case that has ever been made for 

 the abrogation or modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. 

 The arguments are set forth with great earnestness and 

 much plausibility ; but despite the elaborate preparation of 

 the brief, it was completely traversed by Lord Granville's 

 reply to Mr. West (December 30, 1882). 



To offset Mr. Frelinghuysen's contention that the Clay- 

 ton-Bulwer treaty had reference only to the interoceanic 

 routes then in contemplation, Lord Granville needed but to 

 offer in quotation the treaty itself, which declared " that 

 neither the one nor the other of the high contracting parties 

 would ever obtain or maintain for itself any exclusive control 

 over any ship canal which might be constructed between the 

 Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by way of the river San Juan." 

 Having then declared for a principle, as well as for the accom- 



