"I speak of natural rights in connection with the use of this canal with reason and advertently, because our country from the beginning of its history has insisted on the natural rights of our people and of our commerce in the use of every connecting waterway in the world, wherever it has seemed necessary for our people or commerce to properly go. From the beginning of our Government, since the time when John Jay asserted that right on behalf of this country in the British treaty, I think of 1794, and President Jefferson sent our heroic little Navy against the Barbary pirates to assert the right of a free and open sea with equality of treatment, down through the discussion with Denmark of the right to levy sound dues at the entrance of the Baltic, the discussion of natural and international rights in the Straits of Magellan and the rights of the nations in the Pacific, north and south everywhere, every administration of every political party has insisted that American citizens and American commerce should have equal rights with every other nation everywhere and at all times. That has been the true American policy, the historic policy of our country.

"The International Parliamentary Union has collected and published a very elaborate document upon the subject of international rights in maritime canals. It contains a list of about forty great straits and connecting waterways and canals in the world, in which there are natural rights of an international character.

"In many of these the United States has asserted its right of equal treatment, and wherever any question has arisen, our Government has insisted upon its right of equal treatment for its commerce and its citizens

in every one of those waterways. The first time there has been any departure by our country from this invariable rule as to equal treatment in the use of any of this class of waterways, was the enactment of this Panama bill of two years ago.

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"There is another phase of our history that should be remembered and to which I especially wish to call the attention of my friends from New York and California. In 1846 we made a treaty with New Granada concerning communications across the Isthmus of Panama, which covered all kinds of transportation. That treaty provided that our people and our commerce should be treated on equal terms with the people and the commerce of New Granada. You will recall that was about the time of the discovery of gold fields in California. Thousands of our citizens and thousands of tons of our commerce passed over that great highway. The Governments of Panama and Colombia sought to discriminate in numberless ways against our citizens and commerce. They passed and exercised various acts of discrimination against our people. Our people bitterly complained. The records of the State Department contain hundreds of protests, hundreds of complaints, from the citizens of California and from the citizens of New York against the Governments of Panama and New Granada. Our Presidents, our Secretaries of State, our ministers, protested, sometimes effectively, sometimes in vain.

"We protested, I say. Twice warships were sent to enforce equality of treatment, once by a Democratic

administration and once by a Republican administration, and we forced New Granada and we forced little Colombia and little Panama to yield to our citizens and to our commerce equality of treatment in the passage of that Isthmus.

"Now, that same treaty is in force. Secretary Knox officially notified the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce that that same treaty is in force and effect right now. Secretary Root and Secretary Hay based their negotiations with Colombia on the fact that that treaty is in force.

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"We did require Colombia and New Granada to yield to us equality of treatment. While that same treaty is now in force, we propose to continue a law and adopt a policy which shall forbid equality of treatment by us to them. By the law now on the books we propose to exercise the same sort of discrimination which we sent warships and cannon to forbid them making against us. leave it to you to decide as to the honesty and sincerity of that nation and that people who, after they know the facts, will insist upon that sort of discrimination and inconsistency.

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I

"Now, it is argued, and strongly, that because we have spent $400,000,000 in the construction of this canal and must defend and maintain it that it is ours and we ought to have the right to do with it as we please, and prefer and discriminate in favor of our own people. Consider what that argument really means. We went upon that great world highway between the oceans, knowing well the rights and interests of all nations in it. We knew and loudly claimed for many years that this was a great inter

national highway and that we should insist upon our rights of equal treatment in its use. We said so for fifty years before we undertook its construction. When we actually undertook the construction of that highway, we entered into an engagement with the nation which owned the land over which it passed, and promised that it should continue to be a highway for equal use of all nations. We said so in pledges to the world; we said so in express terms to the nation which granted us the land for the highway. In the very instrument of grant, the treaty with Panama, by which the Canal Zone was ceded to us for use as a canal, among other things two were especially mentioned by Panama, one that her own public vessels should use the canal free from tolls, and second, that all vessels of all nations should be equally treated, and that there should be no discrimination to or for any traffic of any nation. These are express conditions of the grant by which we acquired the Canal Zone. Shall we now repudiate these pledges and these promises as to this waterway?

"Senator Davis, in his great report, well said 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. If 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 considerations.

"When we commenced that great undertaking we knew what we were about to do. We went into it with our eyes wide open, and told the world, and especially our

neighbors, of our intention; and now that it is finished, do the American people mean to say that because we want it, because we are big and it is big, we will do as we please regardless of the promises in the past?

"Article II provides three methods for constructing the canal: First, by the United States itself, at its own cost; second, by individuals or corporations whom the United States might assist by loan or gift of money; third, by individuals or corporations with whom the United States may co-operate through subscription to or purchase of stock or shares. Article II is as follows:

Article II. It is agreed that the canal may be constructed under the auspices of the Government of the United States, either directly at its own cost or by gift or loan of money to individuals or corporations or through subscription to or purchase of stock or shares, and that, subject to the provisions of the present treaty, the said Government shall have and enjoy all the rights incident to such construction, as well as the exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the canal.

"Necessarily the rules as to the use of the canal prescribed in Section 1, Article III, as to equality, must apply in the same way to all of these methods of construction and to whichever one of them may be adopted. There is nothing in the treaty indicating any different treatment of American vessels, whether the canal be constructed by private corporations or by the Government itself. This being true, with no provision in the treaty granting any preferential right or privilege, but, on the contrary, the strongest kind of language forbidding it, it must be difficult for any impartial person to fairly contend that a corporation constructing the canal at its