British and the American Governments. I do not wish at this moment to revive or to entertain any controversy upon these points. The President thinks it is more judicious to approach the British Government in a frank and friendly spirit of mutual accommodation, and to ask whether it may not be possible to secure such modification of the provisions of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty as to admit such action by the Government of the United States as may render possible the accomplishment of a work which will be for the benefit of the entire civilized world. The President hopes he may take it for granted that the British Government not only have no wish to prevent the accomplishment of this great work, but that they feel a lively interest in it and appreciate the fact that the benefits of its successful achievement will be to the advantage not only of England and America but of all commercial nations. You will therefore take an early opportunity of conversing with Lord Salisbury upon this matter, of inviting his views in regard to the general situation, and of ascertaining whether he would prefer to let us know the inclinations of the British Government through you or empower Sir Julian Pauncefote to confer with me in regard to it, and, if possible, to come to an agreement which will be satisfactory and profitable to both countries. I am, etc., JOHN HAY. Mr. White to Mr. Hay. [Telegram.] AMERICAN EMBASSY, London, December 21, 1898. Prospects of agreement promising. Principal secretary of state for foreign affairs favorably impressed. Gratified by your dispatch which he pronounced admirable. He seems personally friendly, as I know Balfour is, to the construction of the canal, and admitted in strict confidence during our conversation that a work of such magnitude can only be understaken by and under the auspices of a government; also that it is better such a canal should be under protection of a single power such as the United States than two or more. He willingly assented to negotiations being conducted through you and Pauncefote. Upon hearing that. I thought you would prefer it. Dispatch and private letter next Saturday bag. Mr. White to Mr. Hay. [Telegram.] WHITE. AMERICAN EMBASSY, London, December 22, 1898. I had an interview to-day with British minister for foreign affairs on the subject of your dispatch No. 976, which I read to him. He reciprocates very heartily the sentiments it contains; will confer with the board of trade and other departments concerned, and will instruct the British ambassador at Washington to confer with you with a view to ascertaining the wishes and proposals of our Government and to meet them if possible. He said nothing indicative of opposition, much less hostility, on the part of Her Majesty's Government to the construction of the canal, and I do not believe if it is to be open to all nations on equal terms that there will be any serious difficulty in effecting an agreement satisfactory to both nations. Mr. White to Mr. Hay. WHITE. No. 613] AMERICAN EMBASSY, London, December 22, 1898. SIR: Referring to your instruction numbered 976, of the 7th instant, relative to the proposed Nicaragua Canal and the ClaytonBulwer treaty, I have the honor to inform you that I had an interview yesterday with the Marquis of Salisbury on the subject. I read your instruction to his lordship, but did not leave a copy with him. He was evidently gratified at the frank and friendly spirit of mutual accommodation in which you had instructed me to approach Her Majesty's Government, and requested me to inform you that he reciprocated your sentiments very heartily. Upon my asking him for an expression of his views in the matter, Lord Salisbury said that before complying with my request he would like to know the wishes and proposals of my Government, and exactly what modifications we should like brought about in the ClaytonBulwer treaty. He added that in any case it would be necessary for him, before expressing an opinion on the subject in behalf of Her Majesty's Government, to consult the board of trade and other departments concerned. I suggested that the best and most expeditious way to ascertain the views of my Government would be for him to authorize Her Majesty's ambassador at Washington to confer with you in reference thereto, an opinion in which he concurred, and said that he would communicate immediately by telegraph with Sir Julian Pauncefote, which, later in the day, he informed me he had done. A brief informal conversation followed, during which Lord Salisbury said nothing to lead me to suppose that he is unfavorably disposed-much less hostile-to the construction of the canal under our auspices, provided it is to be open to the ships of all countries on equal terms. I am inclined to think that the construction of the Nicaragua Canal will be viewed with favor by the people of this country, and consequently that we are not likely to encounter any serious difficulty on the part of the British Government in respect to such modifications as may be necessary, to enable us to make it, in the ClaytonBulwer treaty; the more so, as, since the construction of the Suez Canal, that of Nicaragua will no longer have the same importance for the British Empire which it had when the treaty in question was negotiated. In this connection I inclose an article which appeared in the London Spectator of the 10th instant, and which embodies the opinion, I think, of a very considerable majority of those who have given the matter their attention in this country. I inclose also the translation of a cablegram which I sent you in cipher yesterday after my interview with the Marquis of Salisbury. I have, etc., HENRY WHITE. [Inclosure to No. 613.] [From the Spectator, December 10, 1898.] THE NICARAGUA CANAL. We pointed out at the end of last summer that it could not be long before our statesmen would have to bring their minds to bear upon the question of the Nicaragua Canal and the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and this is exactly what has happened. The assertion by the President of the United States in his message to Congress that "the construction of the Nicaragua Canal] is now more than ever indispensable, and our policy more imperatively than ever calls for its control by this Government," has at once brought the matter within the region of practical politics. We make no claim to any special prescience in the matter. The Americans have always longed for an interoceanic canal, and it was evident that directly they had acquired possessions in the West Indies opposite the coasts of Central America, and also an island empire in the Pacific, they would desire to link them by water communication. A revival of interest in the Nicaragua Canal was thus an inevitable sequence of the war. But the Americans can not obtain that control over the Nicaragua Canal which they desire unless we are willing to abandon our rights under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty-an instrument under which both powers bound themselves not to obtain an exclusive control over any interoceanic canal. We and the Americans, that is, agreed some 48 years ago that a canal should only be made and controlled by the two powers acting together, and in no case by either power singly. Thus, if we choose we can no doubt veto the making of the canal and prevent the Americans doing what they so very much want to do. The people of this country have, therefore, to consider whether they will or will not veto the canal. We are glad to see already a good many indications that we do not intend to exercise our right of veto. The Times in its leading article on the President's message uses words which will, we believe, be indorsed not only by the Government but by the majority of English people. The Times says, most reasonably, that if the freedom of the waterway were secured to ships of all nations, as in the case of the Suez Canal, we do not see what object we should have in standing strictly upon claims which originated when the circumstances were altogether different." Not less statesmanlike has been the tone adopted by the St. James Gazette. It has, however, been suggested by the Daily Mail, on the other hand, that we ought not to give up our rights, and that we should insist upon a joint control of the waterway. We do not think, however, that this contention will, if it is carefully examined, find favor here. Joint control, in the first place, means joint guaranties and joint expenditure, and we do not believe that the people of this country are prepared to spend money in Nicaragua. We have plenty of objects nearer home on which to DIPLOMATIC HISTORY OF THE PANAMA CANAL. use our spare cash. When we can get all we want out of an interoceanic canal controlled by America, why should we burden ourselves in the matter? The United States, as the power most nearly and vitally interested, may think it worth while to construct or help construct the canal, but our interests do not extend so far. All we want is that the canal shall be made, and that when it is made it shall be open and available to our merchant ships and ships of war as freely as to those of the United States or of other powers. We merely want an open waterway that no one will be able to tamper with. Now, our contention is that we secure this object better through American control than by any other means. Indeed, if America holds the canal it will be of more use to us in time of war than if we held it ourselves. Supposing the canal ours or merely the property of Nicaragua, a hostile power might block it in the first instance as our property, and in the second, in defiance of a weak State. If, however, it is controlled by America, we need have no fear of being unable to use it, for it will be in hands strong enough to defend it. Take the case of a war with France, Russia, and Germany, and the canal in the hands of the United States. In such a case we might be hard pressed and should find it most convenient to be able to pass our ships through the canal without having to guard its two mouths by protecting squadrons. The canal would be a great neutral harbor with two outlets. Only in the case of war with the United States would American control be anything but a benefit. But even in that case we doubt whether American control would be worse than joint control. The command of the sea would have to be fought out, and the canal would fall to the victor as the prize. We fail, then, to see why we should make ourselves disagreeable to the Americans by vetoing the canal. Rather we hold that we ought to look with the greatest possible satisfaction upon its construction. What is meant by "control" is a matter which requires attention. An able American publicist, Prof. Woolsey, of Yale, in his work on America's Foreign Policy, recently published by the Century Co., of New York, has argued, and with considerable force and ingenuity, that America would gain nothing by exclusive control, and that she had much better claim no more rights in the canal than those given to any other power. Possibly he is right in theory, but in practice some one power will always have the control of any piece of territory, and so of every artificial waterway. It was intended, it will be remembered, that the Suez Canal should be neutralized, and Mr. Woolsey, making a most pardonable blunder, imagines that it was neutralized. In reality the neutrality convention was never brought into force and is now a dead letter, as the Spaniards found when they tried to coal their fleet at Port Said. They claimed to regard the Suez Canal as an international piece of water, but Lord Cromer insisted, and maintained his point, that it was part of the waters of a neutral power. The Suez Canal is not internationalized but is under the control of the power that controls Egypt. It is this kind of control, we take it, that America intends to exercise. What we suppose will happen is something of this kind: Congress will refuse to vote money to be used anywhere except in United States territory, and accordingly a narrow strip of land on each side of the proposed waterway will be granted by Nicaragua and Costa Rica. If this is the plan ultimately adopted there will, of course, be no need of a protectorate treaty with Nicaragua. The canal will be made in United States territory. We come now to the practical side of the question. What answer are we to make to America if, or rather when, she asks us to agree to the abrogation of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty? It has been suggested that we should ask for compensation elsewhere or try to make a bargain for trade facilities. Possibly the plan might succeed, but we confess we dislike such huckstering between nations, especially when they involve demands upon a nation's internal fiscal policy. We hold that it would not only be more dignified, but also more beneficial to us in the long run, to ask for no payment for giving up what has as a matter of fact proved merely a sort of doublebarreled agreement by England and America to play dog in the manger to each other. We would rather abrogate the treaty out of good will and good feeling than for any direct quid pro quo. Let us show the world that, though in the case of foreigners we shall be tenacious of our treaty rights to the last iota, we can in the case of our own kith and kin think of their interests and wishes as well as of our own. The only conditions which we would make should concern the canal itself. We would abrogate the treaty on the following terms: (1) That within the next 10 years the United States should make or obtain the making of an interoceanic canal; (2) that she and no other power should exercise control over the waterway and banks of the canal; (3) that if the United States ever abandoned her power of control it should be offered first to Great Britain; (4) that the canal should be open at all times to all nations at peace with the United States; (5) that the dues charged should be the same in the case of American and other vessels. If the United States were to agree, as they believe they would, to such terms as these we could have no possible ground for refusing to give up our rights under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. That treaty was, no doubt, sincerely meant on both sides to be an act of friendship. It has turned out to be at the best an instrument of mortmain; at the worst, a troublesome cause of friction and it should, therefore, be got rid of. 66 The force of circumstances" is often the most ironical of goddesses, but sometimes she brings about things which are curiously fitting and appropriate. When one-half of the Anglo-Saxon race holds the waterway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, what could be more appropriate than that the other half should hold that between the Atlantic and Pacific? When the Americans hold Lake Nicaragua as we held Lake Timsah the wheel will have come full circle. It is not for us to delay but to hasten that auspicious hour. No. 518.] Mr. Hay to Mr. Choate. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, December 22, 1900. SIR: I have to inform you that the Senate by its resolution of December 20, 1900, has given its advice and consent to the ratification of the convention signed at Washington on February 5, 1900, by |