192 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



Furthermore, a neutralization of the canal by general com- 

 pact would likely prove, when the test came, to be nothing 

 more than a paper agreement. The route not being fortified, 

 an enemy might seize the canal and hold it as a base, greatly 

 to the prejudice of the United States. 



They further maintain that there are circumstances con- 

 nected with the neutralization of the Suez Canal which should 

 serve as a warning to those who advocate an equality of 

 interests in the isthmian canal. Great Britain holds the con- 

 trol of that route. Her occupation of the territory through 

 which the passage has been cut furnishes all the proof neces- 

 sary that England would not hesitate to seize the canal, if the 

 defence of her Indian possessions seemed to call for such ac- 

 tion. The same conditions and necessities would drive the 

 United States to a similar course in Nicaragua. How much 

 better it is, they say, to avoid all cause of future misunder- 

 standing, by promptly asserting the right to fortify and hold 

 the canal. 



They also maintain that commercial interests demand an 

 American monopoly of the route. Efforts are being made, 

 through subsidy and various other measures, to restore the 

 prestige of the American merchant marine. To-day the sea- 

 carrying trade of the world is almost wholly commanded by 

 Englishmen. The discrimination in tolls that could be made 

 in favor of American shipping through the isthmian canal 

 would no doubt furnish a decided stimulus to this growing 

 American industry. 



Possibly the strongest arguments for an " American Canal " 

 are found in the application of the Monroe Doctrine to the sub- 

 ject of canal equalization. While those principles, as enun- 

 ciated by President Monroe in 1823, only denounced foreign 

 interference in the domestic affairs of the American states, 

 they have since been extended into a broader doctrine which 

 gives to the United States this very right of interference. The 

 result of nearly seventy years of varying interpretations of 

 this political creed has tended to remove the Western conti- 

 nents from the sphere of European influence, and to spread 

 the mantle of a United States protectorate over their whole 



