238 TOWER— TREATY OBLIGATIONS [April 17. 



Ocean." This was the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which was signed 

 at Washington on the nineteenth of /fpril, 1850, by Mr. John M. 

 Clayton, then Secretary of State, and Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, 

 British Minister to the United States. By it : 



" The Governments of the United States and Great Britain declare that 

 neither the one nor the other will ever obtain or maintain for itself any 

 exclusive control over the ship Canal, will not fortify, or colonize, or exercise 

 any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part 

 of Central America; also, that neither Great Britain nor the United States 

 will take advantage of any intimacy or alliance that it may have with 

 any government through whose territory the Canal shall pass, for the pur- 

 pose of acquiring or holding any rights or advantages in regard to commerce 

 or navigation through the Canal which shall not be offered on the same 

 terms to the Citizens or subjects of the other." 



The treaty having thus provided for the joint action of Great 

 Britain and the United States, and having agreed that the two gov- 

 ernments should give their support and encouragement to any per- 

 sons or company who might first offer to begin the canal with the 

 necessary concessions and capital, the two contracting nations in- 

 cluded in it the following statement : 



" The Governments of the United States and Great Britain having not 

 only desired, in entering into this Convention, to accomplish a particular 

 object, but also to establish a general principle, they hereby agree to extend 

 their protection, by treaty stipulations, to any other practicable communica- 

 tions, whether by canal or railway, across the isthmus which connects North 

 and South America, and especially to the interoceanic communications, should 

 the same prove to be practicable, which are now proposed to be established 

 by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama"; — it being understood — "that the 

 parties constructing or owning the same shall impose no other charges or 

 conditions of traffic thereupon than the aforesaid Governments shall approve 

 of, — and that the same canals or railways, being open to the citizens and 

 subjects of the United States and Great Britain on equal terms, shall also be 

 open on like terms to the citizens and subjects of every other State which 

 is willing to grant thereto such protection as the United States and Great 

 Britain engage to afford." 



Thus, the Clayton-Bulwer treaty became the foundation for the 

 understanding between the United States and Great Britain and pro- 

 vided for an absolute equality between them in regard, not only to 

 the protection which they united to give to any interoceanic commu- 

 nication that should be established, but also formallv declared that 



