hereby agree to extend their protection, by treaty stipulations, to any other practicable communications, whether by canal or railway, across the isthmus which connects North and South America, and especially to the interoceanic communications, should the same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which are now proposed to be established by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama. In granting, however, their joint protection to any such canals or railways as are by this article specified, 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 the aforesaid Governments shall approve of as 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 which is willing to grant thereto such protection as the United States and Great Britain engage to afford.

There, Mr. President, is the explicit agreement for equality of treatment to the citizens of the United States and to the citizens of Great Britain in any canal, wherever it may be constructed, across the Isthmus. That was the fundamental principle embodied in the treaty of 1850. And we are not without an authoritative construction as to the scope and requirements of an agreement of that description, because we have another treaty with Great Britain-a treaty which formed one of the great landmarks in the diplomatic history of the world, and one of the great steps in the progress of civilization-the treaty of Washington of 1871, under which the Alabama claims were submitted to arbitration. Under that treaty there were provisions for the use of the American canals along the waterway of the Great Lakes, and the Canadian canals along the same line of communication, upon equal terms to the citizens of the two countries.

Some years after the treaty, Canada undertook to do something quite similar to what we have undertaken to do in this law about the Panama Canal. It provided that while nominally a toll of 20 cents a ton should be charged upon the merchandise both of Canada and of the United States there should be a rebate of 18 cents for all merchandise which went to Montreal or beyond, leaving a toll of but 2 cents a ton for

that merchandise. The United States objected; and I beg your indulgence while I read from the message of President Cleveland upon that subject, sent to the Congress August 23, 1888. He says:

By article 27 of the treaty of 1871 provision was made to secure to the citizens of the United States the use of the Welland, St. Lawrence, and other canals in the Dominion of Canadà on terms of equality with the inhabitants of the Dominion, and to also secure to the subjects of Great Britain the use of the St. Clair Flats Canal on terms of equality with the inhabitants of the United States.

The equality with the inhabitants of the Dominion which we were promised in the use of the canals of Canada did not secure to us freedom from tolls in their navigation, but we had a right to expect that we, being Americans and interested in American commerce, would be no more burdened in regard to the same than Canadians engaged in their own trade; and the whole spirit of the concession made was, or should have been, that merchandise and property transported to an American market through these canals should not be enhanced in its cost by tolls many times higher than such as were carried to an adjoining Canadian market. All our citizens, producers and consumers as well as vessel owners, were to enjoy the equality promised.

And yet evidence has for some time been before the Congress, furnished by the Secretary of the Treasury, showing that while the tolls charged in the first instance are the same to all, such vessels and cargoes as are destined to certain Canadian ports

Their coastwise trade

are allowed a refund of nearly the entire tolls, while those bound for American ports are not allowed any such advantage.

To promise equality and then in practice make it conditional upon our vessels doing Canadian business instead of their own, is to fulfill a promise with the shadow of performance.

Upon the representations of the United States embodying that view, Canada retired from the position which she had taken, rescinded the provision for differential tolls, and put American trade going to American markets on the same basis of tolls as Canadian trade going to Canadian markets. She did not base her action upon any idea that there was no competition between trade to American ports and trade to Ca

nadian ports, but she recognized the law of equality in good faith and honor; and to this day that law is being accorded to us and by each great nation to the other.

I have said, Mr. President, that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was sought by us. In seeking it we declared to Great Britain what it was that we sought. I ask the Senate to listen to the declaration that we made to induce Great Britain to enter into that treaty to listen to it because it is the declaration by which we are in honor bound as truly as if it were signed and sealed.

Here I will read from the report made to the Senate on the 5th day of April, 1900, by Senator Cushman K. Davis, then chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. So you will perceive that this is no new matter to the Senate of the United States and that I am not proceeding upon my own authority in thinking it worthy of your attention.

Mr. Rives was instructed to say and did say to Lord Palmerston, in urging upon him the making of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, this:

The United States sought no exclusive privilege or preferential right of any kind in regard to the proposed communication, and their sincere wish, if it should be found practicable, was to see it dedicated to the common use of all nations on the most liberal terms and a footing of perfect equality for all.

That the United States would not, if they could, obtain any exclusive right or privilege in a great highway which naturally belonged to all mankind.

That, sir, was the spirit of the Clayton-Bulwer convention. That was what the United States asked Great Britain to agree upon. That self-denying declaration underlaid and permeated and found expression in the terms of the ClaytonBulwer convention. And upon that representation Great Britain in that convention relinquished her coign of vantage which she herself had for the benefit of her great North American empire for the control of the canal across the Isthmus. Mr. CUMMINS. Mr. President

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from New York yield to the Senator from Iowa?

Mr. Roor. I do, but

Mr. CUMMINS. I will ask the Senator from New York whether he prefers that there shall be no interruptions? If he does, I shall not ask any question.

Mr. ROOT. Mr. President, I should prefer it, because what I have to say involves establishing the relation between a considerable number of acts and instruments, and interruptions naturally would destroy the continuity of my statement.

Mr. CUMMINS. The question I was about to ask was purely a historic one.

Mr. ROOT. I shall be very glad to answer the Senator.

Mr. CUMMINS. The Senator has stated that at the time of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty we were excluded from the Mosquito coast by the protectorate exercised by Great Britain over that coast. My question is this: Had we not at that time a treaty with New Granada that gave us equal or greater rights upon the Isthmus of Panama than were claimed even by Great Britain over the Mosquito coast?

Mr. Roor. Mr. President, we had the treaty of 1846 with New Granada, under which we undertook to protect any railway or canal across the Isthmus. But that did not apply to the Nicaragua route, which was then supposed to be the most available route for a canal.

Mr. CUMMINS. I quite agree with the Senator about that. I only wanted it to appear in the course of the argument that we were then under no disability so far as concerned building a canal across the Isthmus of Panama.

Mr. ROOT. We were under a disability so far as concerned building a canal by the Nicaragua route, which was regarded as the available route until the discussion in the Senate after 1901, in which Senator Spooner and Senator Hanna practically changed the judgment of the Senate with regard to what was the proper route to take. And in the treaty of

1850, so anxious were we to secure freedom from the claims of Great Britain on the eastern end of the Nicaragua route that, as I have read, we agreed that the same contract should apply not merely to the Nicaragua route but to the whole of the Isthmus. So that from that time on the whole Isthmus was impressed by the same obligations which were impressed upon the Nicaragua route, and whatever rights we had under our treaty of 1846 with New Granada we were thenceforth bound to exercise with due regard and subordination to the provisions of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

Mr. President, after the lapse of some 30 years, during the early part of which we were strenuously insisting upon the observance by Great Britain of her obligations under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and during the latter part of which we were beginning to be restive under our obligations by reason of that treaty, we undertook to secure a modification of it from Great Britain. In the course of that undertaking there was much discussion and some difference of opinion as to the continued obligations of the treaty. But I think that was finally put at rest by the decision of Secretary Olney in the memorandum upon the subject made by him in the year 1896. In that memorandum he said:

Under these circumstances, upon every principle which governs the relation to each other, either of nations or of individuals, the United States is completely estopped from denying that the treaty is in full force and vigor.

If changed conditions now make stipulations, which were once deemed advantageous, either inapplicable or injurious, the true remedy is not in ingenious attempts to deny the existence of the treaty or to explain away its provisions, but in a direct and straightforward application to Great Britain for a reconsideration of the whole matter.

We did apply to Great Britain for a reconsideration of the whole matter, and the result of the application was the HayPauncefote treaty. That treaty came before the Senate in two forms: First, in the form of an instrument signed on the