legal arguments. The merits of the case belonged to Great Britain. There was no position which either Mr. Blaine or Mr. Frelinghuysen had taken, which was not disproved by admissions elsewhere made; at every turn there appeared to be an estoppel.

The reason for this utter failure of American statesmen to free the nation from a burdensome treaty is at once clear. For twenty-five years after the conclusion of the treaty the principles embodied therein had been accepted by the United States as sound and wise. On such a basis other treaties had been negotiated, authoritative endorsements had been made, and the whole course and tenor of the nation's thought and attitude toward the question had apparently built an impregnable bulwark about the treaty itself, as it had consecrated the principles for which it stood. Whenever the Clayton-Bulwer treaty shall be attacked, another diplomatic victory will be given to British statesmen, and another defeat scored at home. The treaty is not void, and cannot be avoided upon purely legal ground.

If the conviction which has apparently seized upon the public mind that full American control of any Central American canal is necessary to the safety and welfare of the United States, and must be a condition of any waterway to be constructed, and if this conviction persists, the time will soon come when the United States will feel itself justified in adopting the only rational plan for dissolving the obligations of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. That plan is, boldly to proclaim its abrogation and take the consequences of a breach of faith, whatever those consequences may prove to be. One way short of so radical a procedure would be to offer to Great Britain some manner of compensation for the relinquishment of her rights under the treaty. But the assumption should not be made that the United States is so great a sufferer under the provisions of that treaty. The subject will be discussed under the title "Neutralization of the Canal."

V

The results of the Blaine-Frelinghuysen-Granville controversy greatly displeased the executive; it was unsatisfactory to Congress; it was regarded as a humiliating defeat by the country at large. The conviction was general in Washington that the United States had been duped in 1850, and had been afterward seduced into the damaging admissions, which now arose like ghosts, to frighten the nation into the observance of a self-sacrificing compact. Many believed it to be an exaggerated sense of virtue that bound the nation to the fulfilment of those agreements. Technically, perhaps, it was thought, Great Britain's position in Belize was justified; but honestly, as the human heart appreciates the word, it was not; Granville's arguments did not seem to ring quite true.

But especially discontented with the outcome of this correspondence was a numerous group of Congressmen, who persistently asserted that the salvation of the United States depended upon the immediate construction of an isthmian canal that should be entirely American in every particular. President Arthur himself had been of this opinion, and he at once entered upon the task of putting his convictions. into execution, notwithstanding the unfavorable outcome of the recent diplomatic encounter with Great Britain. Having convinced himself that the Panama Canal (then in process of construction) could never come under the full American control, which he felt to be a necessary condition to his country's safety, he determined that the United States should construct a canal of its own in Nicaragua. Mr. Frelinghuysen prepared the way by concluding a new treaty with Señor Zavala, Special Envoy from Nicaragua (1884).

This treaty was made in total disregard of the convention of 1850. It established a perpetual alliance between the United States and Nicaragua; the United States should construct a canal and then maintain an exclusive control over it. A strip of territory upon either side of the route was transferred to the United States in fee simple.

Nicaragua's territorial integrity was guaranteed, and the United States placed itself in the position of protector of the smaller republic.

It may readily be surmised that the ratification of this treaty would certainly have reopened the Clayton-Bulwer controversy. It would necessarily have provoked a contest between the Monroe Doctrine and the treaty obligations of the United States. The Senate, however, was unwilling to incur the risk of such a debate, and a vote of thirty-two yeas to twenty-three nays left the treaty unconfirmed. A reconsideration was then ordered, and the matter, still unsettled, continued over into the Cleveland administration.

The new Democratic President entered his office with ideas on this question differing radically from those of his predecessor, or rather from those of his last four predecessors. In his first message of December 8, 1885, Mr. Cleveland took occasion to make public these views. Referring to the Frelinghuysen-Zavala treaty, which he had previously withdrawn from the Senate, he said:

My immediate predecessor caused to be negotiated with Nicaragua a treaty for the construction, by and at the sole cost of the United States, of a canal through Nicaragua territory, and laid it before the Senate. Pending the action of that body thereon, I withdrew the treaty for re-examination. Attentive consideration of its provisions leads me to withhold it from re-submission to the Senate.

Maintaining, as I do, the tenets of a line of precedents from Washington's day, which proscribe entangling alliances with foreign States, I do not favor a policy of acquisition of new and distant territory or the incorporation of remote interests with

our own.

I am unable to recommend propositions involving paramount privileges of ownership or right outside of our own territory, when coupled with absolute and unlimited engagements to defend the territorial integrity of the State where such interests lie. While the general project of connecting the two oceans by means of a canal is to be encouraged, I am of opinion that any scheme to that end to be considered with favor should be free from the features alluded to.

Whatever highway may be constructed across the barrier dividing the two greatest maritime areas of the world must be for the world's benefit - a trust for mankind, to be removed from the chance of domination by any single power, nor become a point of invitation for hostilities or a prize for warlike ambition. An engagement combining the construction, ownership, and operation of such a work by this government, with an offensive and defensive alliance for its protection, with the foreign state whose responsibilities and rights we would share is, in my judgment, inconsistent with such dedication to universal and neutral use, and would, moreover, entail measures for its realization beyond the scope of our national polity or present means.

The lapse of years has abundantly confirmed the wisdom and foresight of those earlier Administrations which, long before the conditions of maritime intercourse were changed and enlarged by the progress of the age, proclaimed the vital need of interoceanic transit across the American Isthmus and consecrated it in advance to the common use of mankind, by their positive declarations and through the formal obligation of treaties. Toward such realization, the efforts of my Administration will be applied, ever bearing in mind the principles on which it must rest, and which were declared in no uncertain tones by Mr. Cass, who, while Secretary of State, in 1858, announced that "what the United States want in Central America, next to the happiness of its people, is the security and neutrality of the interoceanic routes which lead through it."

The attitude of the executive throughout both of Mr. Cleveland's administrations served to check the attempts to repudiate the Clayton-Bulwer treaty which were demanded from influential sources; indeed, the earnest efforts of Mr. Blaine and Mr. Frelinghuysen to abrogate that convention have never since been revived, although the Clayton-Bulwer treaty has never ceased to be regarded in other than a most unfavorable light. On two occasions, indeed, since 1883, the provisions of the treaty have been invoked in such a manner as to indicate our renewed adherence to it.

It will be recalled that by the treaty of Managua, between Great Britain and Nicaragua, concluded by Sir William Ouseley in 1860, the former abandoned her protectorate over Mosquitia that strip of territory lying along the gulf coast

M

of Nicaragua. By the terms of this instrument, Nicaragua had guaranteed to pay a certain indemnity to the Mosquito Indians. Probably inspired by the hope that the United States would support her against any British quarrel she might stumble into, Nicaragua persistently refused to pay the promised yearly stipend to the Indians; the latter clamored for their pay, and called upon Great Britain to enforce her treaty rights. Accordingly, in 1880, a demand to this end was made upon Nicaragua; but in consequence of the latter's continued refusal to abide by the terms of her contract, the matter in dispute between the two nations was submitted to the Emperor of Austria for arbitration. At first the administration felt that the United States had been slighted, and that the Monroe Doctrine had been violated as well. It appeared to be a clear case of "foreign interference" on the Western continent; but for several reasons the President believed an American protest would be ill advised. Great Britain was clearly acting within her own rights as a party to a treaty, and the United States had fully approved of the convention when first concluded (Buchanan Message, 1860). Although a foreign tribunal of arbitration threatened the renewal of British claims in Mosquitia, there was simply no help for it, except in the use of force. As apprehended, the arbitration proceedings (July, 1881) resulted in the reëstablishment of the English protectorate over the Mosquito reservation; but consolation was sought by the Senate in reaffirming the principles of the Monroe Doctrine. The episode called forth no direct protest from either Mr. Blaine or Mr. Frelinghuysen.

The commercial and moral effect of the restoration of British influence carrying enlightened Anglo-Saxon rule along the Mosquito shore, was almost magical. Immigration set in, business revived, and the dilapidated village of Bluefields became a commercial centre where British and American

capital sought investment. A large fruit trade was opened with New Orleans, and American capital began the exploitation of Mosquito resources upon a comparatively large scale. This rapid development of Mosquitia operated adversely to