authority to build this canal existed in the war power of the United States. Two Presidents have confirmed this view in their statements that this canal is an addition to our war power as it admits of quicker transfer of our naval forces from one ocean to another.

Yet advocates of the British contention take the stand that we are forbidden to discriminate in favor of our own vessels of commerce, and as vessels of war and commerce are linked together, to be consistent they must argue that we cannot discriminate in favor of our own vessels of war.

Hence they must take the position that if during war with a foreign power we find an enemy's man-of-war in the Canal, we cannot drive it out and if it leaves such waters we must wait twentyfour hours before giving chase. And since under Article II we are given the "Exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the Canal," if engaged in war our ships finding themselves in the Canal must chase themselves out. Can we reach any other logical sequence of their stand? Need its absurdity be pointed out?

The rules in their entirety are simply a means of defining the conditions under which we shall hold the Canal neutral. There has been so much international misrepresentation that this fact has not been grasped except by those who have given this subject exhaustive study.

The usefulness of these rules in respect to neutral treatment and how they are apart from tolls

and regulations connected with the commercial use of the Canal is not usually understood on account of the insincerity of those who attempt to uphold the British contention by ignoring the object to be attained by the rules as well as the clear provisions of Article II of the Treaty.

I heard an eminent authority make the statement a few days ago that if Mr. Hay were alive he would say that the toll exemption clause was in violation of the Treaty. Unfortunately Mr. Hay is not here but he is on record in correspondence connected with the negotiations of the Treaty in which he says: "Upon due consideration of these suggestions, and at the same time to put all the powers on the same footing, viz.: that they could use the Canal only by complying with the rules of neutrality adopted and prescribed, an amendment to Lord Lansdowne's amendment was proposed and agreed upon.

This amendment according to Mr. Hay secured the following:

Thus the whole idea of contract right in the other powers is eliminated and the vessels of any nation which shall refuse or fail to observe the rules adopted and prescribed may be deprived of the use of the Canal.

Here we find in Mr. Hay's own written words a full appreciation of the fact that these are rules of neutrality and that they are binding upon the vessels of other nations.

This reduced to simple phrasing is that we

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only ask other nations to obey our rules of neutrality and we pledge ourselves that in war in which we are not engaged this strait shall be held free and neutral by us to even the war vessels of belligerents, they being required to continue on their good behavior when they pass from the high seas to waters under our control, management, protection and ownership.

Let us see whether the statement that the British Government considers these rules as being formulated for the commercial control of the Canal; Lord Lansdowne under date of August 3, 1901, wrote: "It would appear to follow that the whole responsibility for upholding these rules and thereby maintaining the neutrality of the Canal would henceforward be assumed by the Government of the United States.

In the same communication he says:

While indifferent as to the form in which the point is met, I must emphatically repeat the objections of his Majesty's Government to being bound by stringent rules of neutral conduct not equally binding upon other powers. I would therefore suggest the insertion in Rule 1 after "all nations" of the words "which shall agree to observe these rules." This addition will impose upon other powers the same self-denying ordinance as Great Britain is desired to accept, and will be an additional security for the neutralization of the Canal, which it will be the duty of the United States to maintain.

We know this effort to obtain a contract right in canal management was defeated, but no one

can logically contend that this does not show a clear appreciation and acceptance of the fact that these rules are for the purpose of defining our understanding of our neutral obligations.

Of course, as the final treaty is worded, we find in the words of Mr. Hay:

That no other power had now any right in the premises or anything to give up or part with as a consideration for acquiring such a contract right.

Certainly no one will say that "all nations" as used in the above quotation from Lord Lansdowne's communication includes the United States.

Following the use of the word "nations" and comparing Rule 1 of the second and final treaties given above, no open-minded man will deny the fullest British endorsement of the fact that "nations" as therein used refers to all other nations except the United States. The only conclusion is that instead of asking all nations to agree to observe these rules as a precedent to the use of the Canal by the vessels of such nations, we adopt the rules and require all nations to observe them, and under circumstances so clearly evidenced by the pourparlers the United States could not be one of "all nations" therein referred to.

This is why well informed English diplomats leave to American sympathizers the task of influencing the American public mind by the continued assertion that "all nations" includes the United

States when it is only necessary to follow the evolution of the phrase through successive treaties to know that it does not.

Senator Root, in his various speeches, refers to the views of our past statesmen as indicative of our policy regarding a canal. When these were given everyone contemplated a canal through alien territory whose Governments were weak. If we expected European countries to respect the sovereignty and neutrality of the land of such countries we should set an example ourselves. Conditions, as he very well knows, are entirely changed.

A careful reading of the Suez Convention given in the Appendix will show the care exercised in eliminating every expression carried over to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty that might extend equal treatment to ordinary peaceful commerce. Just as equal treatment in all the operation of the Canal was covered in the Clayton-Bulwer Convention so equal treatment except for Turkey was covered in the Suez agreement.

Sir Julian Pauncefote took part in the Suez conference-he had before him the rules of Suez when the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was negotiated— if he were safeguarding equal treatment in peaceful commerce and trying in phrasing the rules to make neutrality signify equal treatment why eliminate every intimation of such treatment and so draw the rules that they covered conduct applying only to belligerents? Of course, this is