The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-08-15
Another Hay-Pauncefote
Arrangement.

Ambassador Pauncefote and Secre-
tary Hay arranged a treaty last winter
pertaining to the construction OF the
Nicaragua canal. This compact was
not generally approved, so far as ex-
pressions of pnblc opinion through the
ordinary channels indicated, and the
Senate deferred action thereon. The
treaty is still pending in that body.
1t will not be likely to receive the APP
proving vote of two-thirds of the SEN
ators till it has been amended in some
important particulars, Mr.. Hays
diplomacy in the negotiation OF this
treaty has been sharply criticised on
the ground that he proposed to sur
render to Great Britain certain rights
in the matter of the control and owner
ship of the canal which Americans will
deem to be of vital consequence and
upon which they will insist.
Secretary Hay has recently arranged
another convention with Ambassador
Psuncefote for settling temporarily the
Alaskan boundary dispute. To APP
pease the Canadians, Secretary Hay
consents to haul in the American from
tier, for hundred miles, between the
southwesterly corner of Alaska and
British Columbia. Until recent times
no question has arisen as to this bound
airy. The present frontier has remain
ed just where it is on all government
maps of American possessions ever since
1867 when Russia coded Alaska to the
United States. Before 1867, back to
1925, when this boundary was settled
by treaty between Great Britain and
Russia, the frontier had remained I'M
disputed. 1t appears on British maps,
including an atlas the London Times
published in 1897.
In that year gold was discovered in
the Klondike, in the British posses
sions, and at various places in Alaska.
There was great rush to those regions
New discoveries of the shining metal
ware made almost daily. The entry to
these regions from the ocean was from
ports in possession of the United
States under the cession from Russia.
Neither passenger nor pound of
provisions or supplies could enter the
Klondike by any practicable route ex-
cept through American ports. Imme-
diately there was an English revision
of the maps of Alaska, and revision
OF the plain phraseology and plain pur-
pose of the treaties defining the boun-
dairy, all with the purpose of bringing
into British territory ocean ports and
the gold fields discovered which were in
American territory under the determi-
nation of the boundary that was made
in 1926 and which had remained un-
questioned for over seventy years.
Secretary Hay now proposes tenn
porary arrangement under which the
United States shall withdraw from
large area that has been counted Russian
territory since 1926, and has been held
as an American possession since 1867.
His plea is that while the United States
does not surrender any territory under
this provisional arrangement, Great
Britain surrenders nineteen-twentieths
of the land in dispute. This specious
plea is thus characterized by the New
York Sun:
10 prit in IN no
half of Canada, should suddenly demand
REIMBURSEMENT Of the Maine boundary at the
northeast, claiming all OF New England and
part Of New York up to the line OF the Hud-
son river and Lake Champlain; and as If
Mr.. Hay should agree to provisional
boundary at the Penobscot river and along
its east branch to the 6choodic Lakes, and
should then announce his readiness to re-
ceive congratulations on having induced
Great Britain to surrender nineteen
twentieths OF the land in dispute, at the
same time removing source OF irritation in
the relations Of the two countries. That
masterstroke Of compromise would be likely
to receive close attention in the United
States Senate.
The English contention over this
boundary is a repetition of English
policy in Venezuela and the Trans
vasl. Wherever the CLEAN of gold has
appeared in territory contiguous to
British possessions some pretext has
been devised for disturbing ancient
landmarks and including the discov-
cries within British territory. Venez-
uelan and South African tactics will
not prevail against the United States.