H.—34

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sident's memorandum has convinced me that he has not fully appreciated the British point of view, and has misunderstood Mr. Mitchell Innes's note of the Bth July. The President argues upon the assumption that it is the intention of His Majesty's Government to place upon the HayPauncefote Treaty an interpretation which would prevent the United States from granting subsidies to their own shipping passing through the canal, and which would place them at a disadvantage as compared with other nations. This is 'not the case. His Majesty's Government regard equality of all nations as. the fundamental principle underlying the treaty of 1901, in the same way that it was the basis of the Suez Canal Convention of 1888, and they do not seek to deprive the United States of any liberty which is open either to'themselves or to any other nation; nor do they find either 141 the letter or in the spirit of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty any surrender by either of the contracting Powers of the right to encourage its shipping or its commerce by such subsidies as it may deem expedient. The terms of the President's memorandum render it essential that I should explain in some detail the view which His Majesty's Government take as to what is the proper interpretation of the treaty, so as to indicate the limitations which they consider it imposes upon the freedom of action of the United States, and the points in which the Panama Canal Act, as enacted, infringes what His Majesty's Government hold to be their treaty rights. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty does not stand alone; it was the corollary of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850. The earlier treaty was, no doubt, superseded hy it, but its general principle, as embodied in Article 8, was not to be impaired. The object of the later treaty is clearly shown by its preamble; it was "to facilitate the construction of a ship-canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by whatever route may be deemed expedient, and to that end to remove any objection which may arise out of the Claytoii-Bulwer Treaty to the construction of such canal under the auspices of the Government of the United States, without impairing the general principle of neutralization established in Article 8 of that convention." It was upon that footing, and upon that footing alone, that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was superseded. Under that treaty both parties had agreed not to obtain any exclusive control over the contemplated ship-canal, but the importance of the great project was fully recognized, and therefore the construction of the canal by others was to be encouraged, and the canal when completed was to enjoy a special measure of protection on the part of both the contracting parties. Under Article 8 the two Powers declared their desire, in entering into the convention, not only to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a general principle, and therefore agreed to extend their protection to any practicable transisthmian communication, either by canal or railway, and either at Tehuantepec or Panama, provided that those who constructed it should impose no other charges or conditions of traffic than the two Governments should consider just and equitable, and that the canal or railway, " being open to the subjects and citizens of Great Britain and the United States on equal terms, should also be open to the subjects of any other State which was willing to join in the guarantee of joint protection." So long as the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was in force, therefore, the position was that both parties to it has given up their power of independent action, because neither was at liberty itself to construct the canal and thereby obtain the exclusive control which such construction would confer. 'It is also clear that if the canal had been constructed while the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was in force, it would have been open, in accordance with Article 8, to British and United States ships on equal terms, and equally clear, therefore, that the tolls leviable on such ships would have been identical. The purpose of the United States in negotiating the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was to recover their freedom of action, and obtain the right, which they had surrendered, to construct the canal themselves; this is expressed in the preamble to the treaty, but the complete liber.ty of action consequential upon such construction was to be limited by the maintenance of the general principle embodied in Article Bof the earlier treaties. That principle, as shown above, was one of equal treatment for both British and United States ships, and a study of the language of Article 8 shows that the word " neutralization " in the preamble of the later treaty is not there confined to belligerent operations, but refers to the system of equal rights for which Article 8 provides. If the wording of the article is examined, it will be seen that there is no mention of belligerent action in it at all. Joint protection and equal treatment are the only matters alluded to, and it is to one, or both, of these that neutralization must refer. Such joint protection has always been understood by His Majesty's Government to be one of the results of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, of which the United States was most anxious to get rid, and they can scarcely therefore believe that it was such joint protection that the United States were willing to keep alive, and to which they referred in the preamble of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. It certainly was not the intention of His Majesty's Government that any responsibility for the protection of the canal should attach to them in the future. Neutralization must therefore refer to the system of equal rights. It thus appears from the preamble that the intention of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was that the United States was to recover the right to construct the transisthmian canal upon the terms that, when constructed, the canal was to be open to British and United States ships on equal terms. The situation created was in fact identical with that resulting from the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 between Great Britain and the United States, which provided as follows : — " The high contracting parties agree that the navigation of all navigable boundary waters shall for ever continue free and open for the purposes of commerce to the inhabitants and to the ships, vessels, and boats of both countries equally, subject, however, to any laws and regulations of either country, within its own territory, not inconsistent with such privilege of free navigation, and applying equally and without discrimination to the inhabitants, ships, vessels, and boats of both countries.