To set up the selfish motive of gain by establishing a monopoly of a highway that must derive its income from the patronage of all maritime countries would be unworthy of the United States if we owned the country through which the canal is to be built.

That our Government or our people will furnish the money to build the canal presents the single question whether it is profitable to do so. If the canal, as property, is worth more than its cost, we are not called on to divide the profits with other nations. It is worth less and we are compelled by national necessities to build the canal, we have no right to call on other nations to make up the loss to us. In any view, it is a venture that we will enter upon if it is to our interest, and if it is otherwise we will withdraw from its further consideration.

The Suez Canal makes no discrimination in its tolls in favour of its stockholders, and, taking its profits or the half of them as our basis of calculation, we will never find it necessary to differentiate our rates of toll in favor of our own people in order to secure a very great profit on the investment.

In view of that declaration of principle, in the face of that declaration, the United States cannot afford to take a position at variance with the rule of universal equality established in the Suez Canal convention-equality as to every stockholder and all non-stockholders, equality as to every nation whether in possession or out of possession. In the face of that declaration the United States cannot afford to take any other position than upon the rule of universal equality of the Suez Canal convention.

Now, let me read the declaration made to Great Britain to induce her to modify the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and give up her right to joint control of the canal and put in our hands the sole power to construct it or patronize it or control it.

Mr. Blaine said in his instructions to Mr. Lowell on June 24, 1881, directing Mr. Lowell to propose to Great Britain the modification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.

I read his words:

The United States recognizes a proper guarantee of neutrality as essential to the construction and successful operation of any highway across the Isthmus of Panama, and in the last generation every step was taken by this Gov

The

ernment that is deemed requisite in the premises. necessity was foreseen and abundantly provided for long in advance of any possible call for the actual exercise of power. . Nor, in time of peace, does the United States seek to have any exclusive privileges accorded to American ships in respect to precedence or tolls through an interoceanic canal any more than it has sought like privileges for American goods in transit over the Panama Railway, under the exclusive control of an American corporation. The extent of the privileges of American citizens and ships is measurable under the treaty of 1846 by those of Colombian citizens and ships. It would be our earnest desire and expectation to see the world's peaceful commerce enjoy the same just, liberal, and rational treatment. Again, he said to Great Britain:

The United States, as I have before had occasion to assure your Lordship, demand no exclusive privileges in these passages, but will always exert their influence to secure their free and unrestricted benefits, both in peace and war, to the commerce of the world.

It was upon that declaration, upon that self-denying declaration, upon that solemn assurance, that the United States sought not and would not have any preference for its own citizens over the subjects and citizens of other countries that Great Britain abandoned her rights under the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and entered into the HayPauncefote Treaty, with the clause continuing the principles of clause 8, which embodied these same declarations, and the clause establishing the rule of equality taken from the Suez Canal convention. We are not at liberty to give any other construction to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty than the construction which is consistent with that declaration.

By public declarations, by the solemn asseverations of our treaties with Colombia in 1846, with Great Britain in 1850, our treaties with Nicaragua, our treaty with Great Britain in 1901, our treaty with Panama in 1903, we have presented to the world the most unequivocal guaranty of disinterested action for the common benefit of mankind and not for our selfish advantage.

In the message which was sent to Congress by President Roosevelt on the 4th of January, 1904, explaining the course of this Government regarding the revolution in Panama and the making of the treaty by which we acquired all

the title that we have upon the Isthmus, President Roosevelt said:

If ever a Government could be said to have received a mandate from civilization to effect an object the accomplishment of which was demanded in the interest of mankind, the United States hold that position with regard to the interoceanic canal.

There has been much discussion for many years among authorities upon international law as to whether artificial canals for the convenience of commerce did not partake of the character of natural passageways to such a degree that, by the rules of international law, equality must be observed in the treatment of mankind by the nation which has possession and control. Many very high authorities have asserted that that rule applies to the Panama Canal even without a treaty. We base our title upon the right of mankind in the Isthmus, treaty or no treaty. We have long asserted, beginning with Secretary Cass, that the nations of Central America had no right to debar the world from its right of passage across the Isthmus. Upon that view, in the words which I have quoted from President Roosevelt's message to Congress, we base the justice of our entire action upon the Isthmus which resulted in our having the Canal Zone. We could not have taken it for our selfish interest; we could not have taken it for the purpose of securing an advantage to the people of the United States over the other peoples of the world; it was only because civilization had its rights to passage across the Isthmus and because we made ourselves the mandatory of civilization to assert those rights that we are entitled to be there at all. On the principles which underlie our action and upon all the declarations that we have made for more than half a century, as well as upon the express and positive stipulations of our treaties, we are forbidden to say we have taken the custody of the Canal Zone to give ourselves any right of preference over the other civilized nations of the world beyond those rights which go to the owner of a canal to have the tolls that are charged for passage.

Asserting that we were acting for the common benefit of mankind, willing to accept no preferential right of our own, just as we asserted it to secure the Clayton-Bulwer

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Treaty, just as we asserted it to secure the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, when we had recognized the Republic of Panama, we made a treaty with her on the 18th of November, 1903. I ask your attention now to the provisions of that treaty. In that treaty both Panama and the United States recognize the fact that the United States was acting, not for its own special and selfish interest, but in the interest of mankind.

The suggestion has been made that we are relieved from the obligations of our treaties with Great Britain because the Canal Zone is our territory. It is said that, because it has become ours, we are entitled to build the canal on our own territory and do what we please with it. Nothing can be further from the fact. It is not our territory, except in trust. Article 2 of the treaty with Panama provides:

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of said canaland for no other purpose of the width of 10 miles extending to the distance of 5 miles on each side of the centre line of the route of the canal to be constructed.

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The Republic of Panama further grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of any other lands and waters outside the zone above described which may be necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of the said canal or of any auxiliary canals or other works necessary and convenient for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of the said enterprise. Article 3 provides:

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power, and authority within the zone mentioned and described in Article 2 of this agreement-from which I have just read-and within the limits of all auxilliary lands and waters mentioned and described in said Article which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory within which said lands and waters are located to the entire exclusion of the exercise by the Republic of Panama of any such sovereign rights. power, or authority.

Article 5 provides:

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity a monopoly for the construction, maintenance, and operation of any system of communication by means of canal or railroad across its territory between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

I now read from Article 18:

The canal, when constructed, and the entrances thereto shall be neutral in perpetuity, and shall be opened upon the terms provided for by section 1 of article 3 of, and in conformity with all the stipulations of, the treaty entered into by the Governments of the United States and Great Britain on November 18, 1901.

Far from our being relieved of the obligations of the treaty with Great Britain by reason of the title that we have obtained to the Canal Zone, we have taken that title impressed with a solemn trust. We have taken it for no purpose except the construction and maintenance of a canal in accordance with all the stipulations of our treaty with Great Britain. We cannot be false to those stipulations without adding to the breach of contract a breach of the trust which we have assumed, according to our own declarations, for the benefit of mankind as the mandatory of civilization.

In anticipation of the plainly-to-be-foreseen contingency of our having to acquire some kind of title in order. to construct the canal, the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty provided expressly in Article 4:

It is agreed that no change of territorial sovereignty or of international relations of the country or countries traversed by the before-mentioned canal shall affect the general principle of neutralization or the obligation of the high contracting parties under the present treaty.

So you will see that the treaty with Great Britain expressly provides that its obligations shall continue, no matter what title we get to the Canal Zone; and the treaty by which we get the title expressly impresses upon it as a trust the obligations of the treaty with Great Britain. How idle it is to say that because the Canal Zone is ours we can do with it what we please.

There is another suggestion made regarding the obligations of this treaty, and that is that matters relating to the coasting trade are matters of special domestic concern,