tenance of a stable government adequately protecting life, property, and individual liberty, and discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States and now assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.

4. That all acts of the military government, and all rights acquired thereunder, shall be valid and shall be maintained and protected.

5. That to facilitate the United States in the performance of such duties as may devolve upon her under the foregoing provisions, and for her own defense, the United States may acquire and hold the title to land for naval stations, and maintain the same at certain specified points.

The instructions of Secretary Root contemplated Congressional action, and the views expressed in them were incorporated in the following proviso, commonly known as the Platt Amendment to the Army Appropriation Act of March 2, 1901:

Provided further, That in fulfillment of the declaration in the joint resolution approved April twentieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, entitled "For the recognition of the independence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the Government of Spain relinquish its authority and government in the island of Cuba, and to withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba and Cuban waters, and directing the President of the United States to use the land and naval forces of the United States to carry these resolutions into effect," the President is hereby authorized to "leave the government and control of the island of Cuba to its people" so soon as a government shall have been established in said island under a constitution which, either as a part thereof or in an ordinance appended thereto, shall define the future relations of the United States with Cuba, substantially as follows:

I

That the government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain, by colonization or for military or naval purposes or otherwise, lodgment in or control over any portion of said island.

II

That said government shall not assume or contract any public debt, to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking-fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which the ordinary revenues of the island, after defraying the current expenses of government, shall be inadequate.

III

That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.

IV

That all acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected.

V

That the government of Cuba will execute, and, as far as necessary, extend, the plans already devised or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the Southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein.

VI

That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty.

VII

That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.

VIII

That by way of assurance the government of Cuba will embody the foregoing provisions in a permanent treaty with the United States.

A comparison of Mr. Root's instructions with the Platt Amendment shows that in substance as well as in form the instructions and the amendment are practically identical. As previously stated, the amendment was communicated to the constitutional convention and, in order to clear up any doubts or misunderstanding as to the interpretation of the third article both of the instructions and of the amendment, Secretary Root sent the following despatch, dated April 3, 1901, to General Wood, to be communicated to the constitutional convention, and which was actually communicated to a committee thereof:

You are authorized to state officially that in the view of the President the intervention described in the third clause of the Platt amendment is not synonymous with intermeddling or interference with the affairs of the Cuban government, but the formal action of the Government of the United States, based upon just and substantial grounds, for the preservation of Cuban independence, and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and adequate for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States.

This interpretation of the third article is of the utmost importance, as it shows the sense in which it was understood by the United States

and Cuba, disclaiming, as it does, "intermeddling or interference with the affairs of the Cuban government," and declaring the right of intervention to be "for the preservation of Cuban independence and the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty." It is thus a guarantee of Cuban sovereignty, with the right of intervention to prevent action on the part of Cuban authorities, which, if permitted or continued, would jeopardize the independence which Cuba struggled so long and so manfully to obtain, and to secure which the United States intervened by force of arms in 1898. As the amendment, as drafted and interpreted by Mr. Root, was accepted and incorporated in the constitution, and the constitution itself was promulgated by General Wood as Military Governor, on May 20, 1902, General Wood transferred the government in the following manner on May 20, 1902, to the President and Congress of the Republic of Cuba:

Under the direction of the President of the United States, I now transfer to you as the duly elected representatives of the people of Cuba the government and control of the island, to be held and exercised by you, under the provisions of the constitution of the Republic of Cuba, heretofore adopted by the constitutional convention and this day promulgated; and I hereby declare the occupation of the island to be ended.

This transfer of government and control is upon the express condition, and the Government of the United States will understand, that by the acceptance thereof you do now, pursuant to the provisions of the said constitution, assume and undertake all and several the obligations assumed by the United States with respect to Cuba by the treaty between the United States of America and Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain, signed at Paris on the 10th day of December, 1898.

On behalf of Cuba, President Palma replied:

As President of the Republic of Cuba, I hereby receive the government of the island of Cuba which you transfer to me in compliance with orders communicated to you by the President of the United States, and take note that by this act the military occupation of Cuba ceases.

Upon accepting this transfer I declare that the Government of the Republic assumes, as provided for in the constitution, each and every one of the obligations concerning Cuba imposed upon the United States by virtue of the treaty entered into on the 10th of December, 1898, between the United States and Her Majesty the Queen Regent of Spain.

It has been thought timely to state the origin and nature of the Platt Amendment in a brief but connected narrative, leaving to a subsequent comment the applicability of its essentials to the Latin American republics to the north of the Panama Canal.

THE REPEAL OF THE PROVISION OF THE PANAMA CANAL ACT EXEMPTING AMERICAN COASTWISE VESSELS FROM THE PAYMENT OF TOLLS

When the Act "to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection, and operation of the Panama Canal, and the sanitation and government of the Canal Zone," the short title for which is "The Panama Canal Act," was passed by the Congress of the United States and approved by the President on August 24, 1912, an editorial appeared in the October number of the Journal for that year commenting upon the passage of the Act through Congress, and especially upon the provision that exempted American vessels engaged in the coastwise trade from the payment of tolls. Since that time this provision of the Act has been the subject of international controversy between the United States and Great Britain and an issue debated at great length and with much earnestness in the internal politics of the United States.

It is not necessary for our readers that we restate the positions of the two governments or recount the elaborate and at times heated arguments which have been elsewhere advanced on both sides of the question as to whether the provision referred to was in contravention of the HayPauncefote Treaty. The substance of the first protest of Great Britain, dated July 8, 1912, which was filed with the Department of State while the Act was pending in Congress, and the text of the memorandum of President Taft which accompanied his signature of the Act by way of answer to the British protest, are contained in the editorial referred to.1 The formal protest of Great Britain dated November 14, 1912, and handed to Secretary of State Knox by the British Ambassador on December 9, 1912, the answer of the United States, dated January 17, 1913, and the reply of Great Britain of February 27, 1913, are printed in full in the Supplement for 1913, pages 46, 208 and 100, respectively. The subject was put on the program of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Society, held in Washington in April, 1913, and the printed Proceedings of that meeting contain the discussions in full on both sides of the question and upon all the points involved in the dispute.

The diplomatic correspondence had lagged for a little over a year when President Wilson, on March 5, 1914, took a decisive step toward ending the international problem which he had found unsolved upon his assumption of office a year previous. On this date he appeared before

1 The text of the British note is printed in the Supplement for 1913, page 46.

Congress and made an address in which he expressed his personal opinion that discrimination in favor of American ships was prohibited by the treaty. But without urging this, his personal view, upon Congress, he earnestly requested for other reasons the repeal of the objectionable clause. The President's address is so very brief and concise that it is. printed textually, as follows:

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, gentlemen of the Congress: I have come to you upon an errand which can be very briefly performed, but I beg that you will not measure its importance by the number of sentences in which I state it. No communication I have addressed to the Congress carried with it graver or more far-reaching implications as to the interest of the country, and I come now to speak upon a matter with regard to which I am charged in a peculiar degree, by the Constitution itself, with personal responsibility.

I have come to ask you for the repeal of that provision of the Panama Canal Act of August 24, 1912, which exempts vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States from payment of tolls, and to urge upon you the justice, the wisdom, and the large policy of such a repeal with the utmost earnestness of which I am capable.

In my own judgment, very fully considered and maturely formed, that exemption constitutes a mistaken economic policy from every point of view, and is, moreover, in plain contravention of the treaty with Great Britain concerning the canal concluded on November 18, 1901. But I have not come to urge upon you my personal views. I have come to state to you a fact and a situation. Whatever may be our own difference of opinion concerning this much-debated measure, its meaning is not debated outside the United States. Everywhere else the language of the treaty is given but one interpretation, and that interpretation precludes the exemption I am asking you to repeal. We consented to the treaty; its language we accepted, if we did not originate; and we are too big, too powerful, too self-respecting a Nation to interpret with too strained or refined a reading the words of our own promises just because we have power enough to give us leave to read them as we please. The large thing to do is the only thing that we can afford to do, a voluntary withdrawal from a position everywhere questioned and misunderstood. We ought to reverse our action without raising the question whether we were right or wrong, and so once more deserve our reputation for generosity and for the redemption of every obligation without quibble or hesitation.

I ask this of you in support of the foreign policy of the administration. I shall not know how to deal with other matters of even greater delicacy and nearer consequence if you do not grant it to me in ungrudging measure.

A bill to carry out the President's request was immediately introduced in the House of Representatives and promptly passed. In the Senate, however, it met a formidable and determined opposition, and was not passed until June 11th, after three months of debate, and then only with an amendment aimed to reserve any rights which the United States may