Birmingham age-herald., 1895-05-05

know that talk makes me very Ilreu This case has gone far beyond the Mon roe doctrine far beyond the Clayton Bulwer treaty It has a character that is distinctly it's own, and that rests upon higher grounds than any doc Urine or any treaty ever made or enunciated. The United States and the governments of Nicaragua and Costa Rica have entered into solemn com pact with each other looking to the construction of this great maritime highway; the company, composed most ly of citizens of the United States. is organized and starts the workA These subjects of the United States have paid out $5,000.000 or s6,000,000 in further ance of the enterprise and have at all times stood ready to complete the canal without any intervention or aid on the part of the United States. I repeat that they have not asked for the interfer- ence of congress- They have been ready to complete the canal and are ready to do it.
 Now comes Great Britain. with that domineering spirit of aggression that has marked her course throughout the his tory of modern times, and upon the slmmest of pretexts, the most absurd of excuses, makes a demand upon the government of Nicaragua that she does not expect to be complied with, and all in the hope that through the default of the weaker government she will be enabled to establish sovereignty over the territory and thus control the future development of the canal and of the traffic that may pass through it. And yet here stand these three governments, bound together by the solemn compact, in practical partnership, the object of which is to prevent any foreign in- terference with this great international, project It Is bosh for the people to talk about this interference being violation of the Monroe doctrine or of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. It is vio- lation of the plainest kind of business and moral principles
 No Criticism of the Administration.
 "I have no criticism to make of the ad- ministration, for the simple reason that do not know what the administration has done in the present emerg ency. l have conversed with no officer of the government who Is in position to under stand the policy now being carried out, and I am wholly ignorant of the state of affairs I presume"-and the senator gave particular emphasis to the word that the administration has done the right thing; that it has adhered to Amer isan principles and has insisted upon the plain rights of this country and of Nic- aragua. I do not know that such is the case, but in the absence of any informa- tion I am assuming that the adminis- tration is taking the right course. So I have no criticism to offer of the atti tude of the administration, but can say this positively-if it should prove that the administration has not done what I believe to be the right thing in the prem ises-that is to say, has not taken steps to prevent Great Britain from squeezing this little government and of obtaining a lien upon it-then congress at its next session will, am convinced, give utter ance in no uncertain terms and demand the withdrawal of all British interests from the Nicaraguan territory.
 Americans Are Not Fools.
 "I do not believe that the American people are foolS as rule. I do not think that they are wholly blind to the charac- ter of Great Britain and the attitude of that country toward the rest of the world. It is not a reasonable thing for me to suppose that after nearly a centu- ry and a quarter of acquaintance with British methods and British aims, in- habitants of this country have not come to a realizing sense of the way in which England looks upon all territory that Is not yet under her dominion. John Bull is the same today, in 1895, as he was in 1775. Nothing in the meanwhile has oc- cured to change the character of his disposition. He is the same grasping, greedy, clever fellow-always ready to enlarge his territory and his power. He looks upon America with the same eyes today that he did when we were a band of colonies, independent in every partic- ular except in fact and though he is a little more cautious in his aggressions in Nicaragua he is playing the same game that he was then. Has the loss of the American colonies altered him in the least in his attitude toward them? Not at all He has come on steadily, enlarg- ing his posts until he has nearly sur rounded the United States with a chain of British colonies and possessions. He has a continent, Australia, larger in ter ritory than the United States. He has taken Cyprus, Egypt, countless islands. "He has squeezed us out of territory on our western coast, giving him free sea- board on the western edge of this con tin mt. He has bulldozed us out of the value of our seal fisheries in Alaska. He would have taken Samoa if 1t had not