The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1901-11-30
Isthmian Canal Treaty.

| y EDITORIAL note last week, re-
| n ferring to the isthmian canal
treaty just signed by Mr.. Hay
for the United States and Lord
! Pauncefote for Great Britain, gave out
that the principles involved would not
be known until the proposed treaty had
| been submitted to the United States
senate The San Francisco Examiner,
! however, claims that it can state on
authority that the United States is in
vested with the sole right to protect
the canal from damage by an enemy;
the United States has the right to ex-
| clude an enemy's ships from the use
of the canal, and the United States
alone of all nations has the right to
defend itself in the waters adjacent to
the canal.
If this be true. then the principles
above noted are important because
they were forced from Great Britain
and neutralize the so-called neutraliZa-
ton of the canal. In time of war it
is plain from the text of the treaty
that the United States will have privi-
leges not to be enjoyed by any other
nation. More important than the above
agreement between the United States
and Great Britain is the following e&-
tract from the treaty:
The canal shall be free and open to
vessels of commerce and of war of all
nations observing these rules on terms
of entire equality, so that there shall
be no discrimination against any such
nation"
There was more discussion on the
verbiage of this proposition than any
other between Lord Lansdowne, Am
bassador Choate and Lord Pauncefote.
Lord Lansdowne insisted that the
phraseology should be that the ma
tions should "agree to observe the
rules" The American diplomatists,
however, insisted that if the nations
were in the treaty to agree to GER
tain things, that word would imply
a contract with foreign nations and
the object of the new treaty was to
give exclusive American control Lord
Lansdowne and Lord Pauncefote
yielded
An extremely important provision
of the new treaty is article 4, the point
of which is that mo change of SOW
ereignty or of international relations
OF the country or countries traversed
by said ship canal shall affect the
general principle of naturalization
hereby established, or the obligations
of the parties under this treaty" BY
this article no changes in the govern
ments of Nicaragua or Costa Rica. or
their relations to any other nation than
the United States Shall impair the
rights of the United States in the
canal. Thus, if Costa RIGA or Nicara-
qua should ever become a part of the
United States, or by the fortunes of
war dependencies on any other coun-
try, the right of the United States
would still be intact The preamble !
of the new treaty has been changed !
slightly The change consists of the |
insertion of the words by whatever |
route may be considered expedient." !
after the words "a ship canal to con- |
meet the Atlantic and the Pacific /
oceans"
The other points in the new treaty |
which have heretofore been conjec- !
tural, are that Great Britain agrees
to omit the clause prohibiting the for
of the canal. and that the
United States has the right by this
very treaty to close a canal against
oelligerent and to defend it "by what
ever means are deemed necessary"
This gives the United States the right
to fortify heretofore denied