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of our own, just as we asserted it to secure the ClaytonBulwer treaty, just as we asserted it to secure the HayPauncefote treaty, when we had recognized the Republic of Panama, we made a treaty with her on the eighteenth 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 II 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 canal—

"And for no other purpose

of the width of ten miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side of the center 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 of 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 III provides:

The Republic of Panama grants to the United States all the rights, power and authority within the zone mentioned and described in Article II of this agreement

"From which I have just read

and within the limits of all auxiliary lands and waters mentioned and described in said Article II 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 V 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 XVIII:

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 III 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.

"So, 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 IV:

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.

"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 holds 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. Upom that view 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.

THE FOLLOWING EXCERPTS, TAKEN FROM A SPEECH BY SENATOR LODGE, ARE NOTEWORTHY BECAUSE OF THEIR MORAL APPEAL:

"Almost all the nations largely engaged in commerce now pay either indirectly or specifically the tolls of their vessels passing through the Suez Canal. They will

undoubtedly do the same thing for their vessels which pass through the Panama Canal. If we choose to pay the tolls of our vessels passing through the Panama Canal, it is admitted by England and by all other nations that we have the right to do so.

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"If the real purpose of our legislation is to benefit our shipping and insure an invincible competition to the railroads, whether foreign or domestic, the payment of the tolls on American vessels by the Government of the United States is our right of way through the treaty and is admitted to be so by all the nations of the earth. The steadfast refusal to adopt this obvious and undisputed method of aiding American shipping in competition with the transcontinental roads raises the inevitable inference that the primary object of insisting upon a naked toll exemption is not the benefit of American shipping and the reduction of water rates, but to achieve this result in a manner which shall demonstrate our disregard for the opinions and rights of foreign nations, and more particularly for the rights of England under the HayPauncefote treaty. Personally, I think it most unwise to insist upon exempting our vessels from tolls with the single object of flouting the opinion and disregarding the rights of other nations as those nations understand their rights.

"I now come to another point which weighs very strongly with me in deciding against giving relief from tolls to American ships by the method employed by the canal act. Whatever our opinion may be as to the strict legal interpretation of the rules governing the matter of

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