THE INTEROCEANIC CANAL PROBLEM 191 



high seas, being comparatively modern, has not yet found 

 a definite place in public law, though evidence tends to prove 

 that ship canals do possess a quasi-international character, 

 and that their owners are under some manner of obligation 

 to the world to keep them inviolable from hostile attack. At 

 best, the precedent is but doubtfully fixed in law, and might 

 be fittingly ignored should self-interest so demand. Indeed, 

 an exclusive American control of the Nicaragua Canal might 

 in itself establish a new precedent more valuable than the 

 old. 



Abandoning, therefore, all thought of the past, the subject 

 may be considered solely from the standpoint of the future, 

 - Is it to the best interests of the United States to construct 

 the canal as a national undertaking and to maintain over it 

 sole financial and political control ? Do those interests favor 

 the repudiation of all existing treaties bearing upon the sub- 

 ject ? Do they call for a denial of the spirit of public law ? 

 The preponderance of public sentiment in the United States 

 is in the affirmative. 



The advocates of American monopoly of the canal route 

 contend that the safety of the United States demands this 

 course ; that the protection of the country being of the first 

 importance, all other considerations should be regarded as 

 secondary. They maintain that a neutralized canal would 

 expose both of the American coasts to hostile attack. In 

 case of war, the United States would be compelled to permit 

 an enemy's fleet, while bent upon an errand of destruction, 

 to pass unchallenged through a neutral canal. In time of 

 peace, it would be obliged to maintain a largely augmented 

 fleet in both Pacific and Atlantic waters; in short, to double 

 its navy. Now, on the other hand, were the United States to 

 fortify the banks or the entrances of the route, a hostile fleet 

 could be debarred from its use ; at the same time the Ameri- 

 can navy would be vastly increased in effectiveness by exclu- 

 sive freedom of passage. In this manner a squadron could be 

 quickly transferred from the Atlantic to the Pacific, while 

 the enemy would be relegated to the long voyage by way of 

 Magellan. 



