*

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repealed. I think so because foreign opinion is united against us, while opinion in our own country is divided as to the proper interpretation of the language of the treaty, and I am not willing to have the good faith of the United States impugned on account of action taken upon such a contested ground as this. I think the exemption clause should be repealed because the understanding upon which the treaty was made is declared by all our negotiators to have been contrary to that which I think a strict legal interpretation of the terms of the rules would warrant. Finally, I think it should be repealed because a decent respect for the opinions of mankind and the high position of the United States among the nations of the world demand it. * * *

"The construction of the Panama Canal is one of the greatest achievements of the people of the United States. We owe a debt to the French who preceded us in the attempt to cut the Isthmus at that point, and we freely acknowledge the benefit which we have derived, not only from their surveys and their engineering but from the sacrifices which they so freely made in behalf of this great undertaking. I sincerely hope that the bill proposed by the Senator from Mississippi, to erect a monument to De Lesseps at the entrance to the canal, will be passed, and that that monument will also commemorate the deeds of the men who gave their lives to the task which their country had imposed. I hope, too, that when the canal is opened we shall permit the little boat named Louise, inherited by us from the French, to pass through with the first American battleship, and that we shall then give it to France, so that it may rest upon the waters of the Seine,

a memorial to a great work which the people of France first attempted and also to the long friendship of the two nations.

"But while France made the first effort and failed, we took up the work and carried it to completion. It is the greatest engineering feat of modern times, and the triumphant result is due not only to the genius of our military engineers but to the labor of the medical officers of the Army, who converted hot-beds of pestilence into a region as healthful as any on the face of the earth. Nothing, to my thinking, could be finer than the work of the great army which Colonel Goethals has led to this victory of peace, and which has never faltered or swerved in its onward march through mountains and by lakes. In all that vast expenditure, in all the enormous labors which have been begun and completed upon that historic Isthmus there is no spot or blemish to be found. Not only the canal itself but the manner in which it has been built are among the noblest national achievements, which the history of the United States will cherish and preserve. I trust that all this glory and that this noble work, done not merely for our own profit but for the benefit of the world, will not be disfigured by a desire to put money into the pockets of a few American citizens in a questionable manner. I should be grieved to see this great monument of American genius and American skill defaced by a sorry effort to affront other nations when we complete a vast work designed to promote not trade alone but peace and good will among all mankind.”

Oscar S. Straus states from an international stand

point the unwisdom of granting free transportation to our coastwise shipping.

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"Are we now to cast aside all of our high purposes which have been consecrated by uniform practices for the past century and a quarter, from the administration of Washington to the administration of Wilson for a paltry sum at most of $2,000,000 annually? * Are we to sacrifice the decent respect for the opinions of mankind for this miserable mess of pottage? This phase of the subject I wish to emphasize, as the importance of it impresses itself upon me with greater force than perhaps it does some others, who have not been charged with service for the country in foreign lands, and therefore perhaps do not appreciate as fully as they otherwise would, its international aspect and relationship.

*

"You have before you

the understanding

as to the meaning of the treaty given by our negotiators, Ambassador Choate and Henry White, who are both emphatic in their statement that there was no preference to be given to any of our ships over those of Great Britain. If any doubt remains in our midst, for there is no doubt on the part of other nations, let us not leave with them even a suspicion that because we have the power to construe this treaty to their disadvantage we would do them even an apparent injustice. Let us, on the contrary, emphasize that our word is as good as our bond and that our bond is not open to technical construction, or even to quibble, and that we will fulfill it not only to the letter but in accord with a broad and liberal spirit, as was so admirably expressed by Washington in his Farewell Address:

It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.

"I have purposely avoided going over the general argument as to the construction of the treaty, and have tried to confine myself to the international aspect of it. I need not impress upon your mind the great value of a great reputation for fairness, for broadness of view on the part of a nation. We have or did have a tremendous influence in the councils of nations upon all questions affecting the international welfare of the world. Now, as a matter of policy, should we not do everything to continue that great power, and in the language of Sumner in his Prophetic Voices Concerning America, that 'the example of the United States will be more puissant than Army or Navy for the conquest of the world.'

"I think there is no doubt that the nations of the world feel that in excluding our coastwise ships from the payment of tolls that we-putting it in its mildest form-are making a technical construction for our advantage of an international treaty that is of interest to the whole world.

"Now, as a matter of policy, would it not be wise in consideration of the great influence that we can exert and are exerting in the court of nations, not to take advantage of what to them appears, and to many of the ablest men of the Senate and House appears, as a technical and narrow construction? That appears to me to be the broad view of the subject. I know from personal experience that many of the leading men feel that we, in making this construction, are technical, narrow and selfish."

The following newspaper clippings are in line with the foregoing:

"It is difficult for an American to realize the false position in which we have been placed as a nation by the enactment of two years ago, when we legislated in favor of freedom of American vessels engaged in the coastwise trade from the payment of tolls. However, our own selfish interests may prejudice us in our construction of the terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, the fact remains that in Europe the treaty is looked upon as guaranteeing to other nations the use of the canal under exactly the same conditions as those which apply to the United States. Indeed, this action has won for us the unpleasant reputation of being willing to ignore plain treaty stipulations when our interests so suggest. In short, tradition, consistency and national honor all unite in demanding that we take speedy action to renounce this legislation of two years ago and that we at once place all our traffic through the canal upon the same basis as that of other nations."

"London, April 3.-The Spectator, commenting upon the status of the Panama Canal tolls repeal bill in the United States Congress, says in an editorial today:

The honor of the United States is now at stake before the whole world. We do not think we shall be charged with affectation if we say that the question whether British ships are or are not to pay more than their share for the up-keep of the canal is as nothing compared with the question whether the United States can or cannot be counted upon to accept the obvious meanings of treaties and scrupulously to observe them.

If the mighty Anglo-American race in the United States, which has received the imprint of Anglo-Saxon character, allows it to be said that the United States does not respect treaties, a