234 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



shady trees in the Cristobal quarter, beside the 

 statue of Columbus, and contemplated the trans- 

 formation of the simple house of De Lesseps into 

 offices of the Canal Commission. Surely to-day 

 the word that once all but plunged our friends 

 across the Channel in the throes of civil war marks 

 the flood-tide of American daring in an enterprise 

 at once commercial and Quixotic. 



At the time when Panama was erected into a 

 republic independent of Colombia, with the uncon- 

 cealed connivance of Washington, it was. pointed 

 out in England, with some unnecessary heat (since 

 the matter in no way concerned ourselves), that 

 the instructions issued by Mr Roosevelt and his 

 Government to the Nashville, then conveniently 

 cruising in Isthmian waters, involved a gross 

 breach of international etiquette, if not indeed of 

 international law. It was further hinted that 

 Washington took a very different view of such 

 amenities when, forty years earlier, Europe was in 

 favour of recognising the belligerent rights of the 

 South. Of course it did. Equally of course, it 

 took the view which best suited its aims on the 

 more recent occasion. These criticisms are always 

 regrettable on the part of any nation in respect of 

 the affairs of a neighbour ; from England, which 

 without centuries of such arbitrary action could 

 never have reared the splendid fabric of those 

 oversea possessions, at once the glory of the 

 Empire and the envy of the world, they are the 

 snuffles of Chadband. Colombia put obstacles in 

 the way of the Canal, Washington removed them : 

 it is the game of chess that nations play for all 

 time. On the face of it, the conduct of the 



