with our settled national policy, but which in their bearing upon the interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty far outweigh all the preceding, not only because of the similarity in the questions involved but because of the further fact that they are so nearly contemporaneous with the negotiation of the treaty. The facts pertaining to them must have been clearly in mind when the treaty was framed They are:

"Our negotiations in relation to the so-called open door in China in 1899 and succeeding years. [The otherthe Welland Canal controversy-anon.] Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia and Japan were the countries regarded as possessing, though in unequal degrees, an advantageous position in China.

"Mr. Hay accordingly laid down certain principles which he desired should be formally declared by the Russian Empire and by all the great powers interested in China. Of these principles he said, they 'will be eminently beneficial to the commercial interests of the whole world':

Third, that it will levy no higher harbor dues on vessels of another nationality frequenting any port in such "sphere" than shall be levied on vessels of its own nationality, and no higher railroad charges over lines built, controlled or operated within its "sphere" on merchandise belonging to citizens or subjects of other nationalities transported through such "sphere" than shall be levied on similar merchandise belonging to its own nationals transported over equal distances.

"Special attention is called to the third of the principles, the recognition of which was requested. It included a demand that no higher railroad charges over lines built,

controlled or operated within its sphere on merchandise belonging to the citizens or subjects of other nationalities should be levied than on similar merchandise belonging to its own nationals.

*

"We thus demanded equal use of the ports controlled by these various nations, equal privileges in trade, and, what is most significant of all, equal railroad rates upon railways constructed by Russia at great expense and extending into the interior through Chinese territory to a connection with railways within her own domains.

* * *

"Not only was the treaty in accordance with our traditional policy, but negotiations had been initiated contemporaneously with the negotiations with the various nations in China for an ‘open door,' and it would have been the height of inconsistency to have made the demand for equality of treatment in China and to have denied it in a treaty relating to an Isthmian canal.

"Our record was so uniform and unbroken that we could have taken no other ground. The attempt by John Adams and Franklin and Jay in the years 1782 and 1783 pointed a new way as emphatically and as decisively as any of the great principles which lie at the foundation of our Government."

Negotiations were begun with the clear understanding on the part of both Great Britain and the United States that the ships of all nations would be allowed the use of the canal on equal terms.

Henry White states the results of the first conference in the following:

"A brief, informal conversation followed, during which Lord Salisbury said nothing to leave me to suppose that he is unfavorably disposed-much less hostile to the construction of the canal under our auspices, provided that it is open to the ships of all countries on equal terms.” "Open to the ships of all countries on equal terms" was understood to mean:

"It is always understood by the United States and Great Britain that the parties constructing or owning the same shall impose no other charges or conditions of traffic thereupon than are just and equitable; 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."

Negotiations were closed with this understanding according to Ambassador Choate:

"I wrote to the chairman of the committee, Senator O'Gorman, inclosing to him, by the express permission of the Secretary of State, a copy of my letters to Secretary Hay between August 3 and October 12, 1901, the same that you have. To my mind they establish beyond question the intent of the parties engaged in the negotiation that the treaty should mean exactly what it says, and excludes the possibility of any exemption of any kind of vessels of the United States. Equality between Great Britain and the United States is the constant theme, and especially in my last letter of October 2, 1901, where I speak of Lord Lansdowne's part in the matter, and say 'He has shown an earnest desire to bring to an amicable settlement, honorable alike to both parties, this long and

In

important controversy between the two nations. substance, he abrogates the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, gives us an American canal, ours to build as and where we like, to own, control, and govern, on the sole condition of its being always neutral and free for the passage of the ships of all nations on equal terms, except that if we get into a war with any nation, we can shut its ships out and take care of ourselves.'

"This was the summing up of our whole two months' negotiation."

Closed with the understanding embodied in the following, according to Secretary of State John Hay— the man who knew:

"All means all. The treaty was not so long that we could not have made room for the word 'other' if we had understood that it belonged there. All nations' means all nations, and the United States is certainly a nation." "That was the understanding between yourself and Lord Pauncefote when you and he made the treaty?" I pursued.

"It certainly was," he replied. "It was the understanding of both Governments, and I have no doubt that the Senate realized that in ratifying the second treaty without such an amendment it was committing us to the principle of giving all friendly nations equal privileges in the canal with ourselves. That is our golden rule."

Senator McCumber properly says:

"I cannot imagine how any Senator in this chamber who will read the history that precedes the ClaytonBulwer treaty, who will read the Clayton-Bulwer treaty

following our declarations, and who will then read the declarations of this Government in all its statements from that time down to 1901, can for one moment question our great national policy of equality of treatment of all vessels which might use that canal. Then, when we come down to the conditions, the views of both Governments at the time we entered into the great obligation known as the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, when we stop and read the declaration of the British press and the declaration of the American press that coincide exactly, showing that the views of the two nations have never changed in the slightest degree, when we follow that up with the declaration of our negotiators * * * in which they declare over and over again that the general principles of neutrality enunciated in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty should not be violated or impaired by this Government, and when we follow that up by the declarations that are shown in the letters [of Ambassador Choate and Henry White] I cannot conceive the possibility of any man's mind being so everlastingly prejudiced that he will close it to all this clear, unmistakable evidence of what they and we all understood this treaty to mean, and insist that notwithstanding all this we can read the treaty another way. Our duty is to read that treaty the way the parties understood it to mean when they signed it."

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The matter, as indicated in the foregoing by Senator McCumber, was so fully settled by those who actually negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote treaty and the treaty with Panama-Hay-Bunau-Varilla-and knew the intent of the parties that the great English and American