The sun., 1903-12-07

1858; to Nicaragua in 1855, OF which
country he was chosen President in the
next year; and to Honduras in $780, In
order to replenish the Nicaragua treas
ury, he revoked the charter and con-
fiscated the property of Commodore
VANDERBlLT's interoceanc transit COM
pany, the facts Of which are exhibited in
the republshed Senate document, as
we'll as those concerning the first Panama
riot, which led up to the policing of the
1sthmian railway in 1855 by the Navy
Department
Perhaps the most instructive portion
of the document is that wherein MARCY
expounds to WHEELER, our Minister in
those days at Granada in Nicaragua,
and to the Ministers of Mexico and Costa
Rica at Washingt on the difficult prob
lem of recognition OF new State or
Of new rulers in an old State. He really
made then the modern law of the subject
which has now, by general consent of the
nations, become their rule.
The right of every independent State
to manage it's internal affairs in its own
way has always been modified by the
right and duty of a foreign State in re-
gard to it's citizens and their property
which are in the former State, and the
necessity of finding officials therein OF
whom demand for satisfaction for un-
lawful injuries can be made. 1t is incon-
venient when the parties doing injury
have no governing persons, as was the
case at Greytown some fifty years ago.
Hence came the difficulties of what the
law of nations describes as recognition.
The first thing to be done, and espe-
cially in a Central American revolt is TO
discover committee, a junta, a Govern
ment, seeming to be sanctioned by the
will or acquiescence OF the people.
That is essential. A written constitu-
tion and congress are not necessary.
One individual, il really representative,
may make a government for the pur-
pose of recognition, when the United
States has rights to be instantly pro-
tected or vindicated. Something like
that is the rule that the United States
long ago adopte ed in Spanish America,
with the consent Of the nations OF the
world. In Panama the rule has been
influenced by treaty right and fifty
years usage Of intervention to protect
and manage railway against all comers,
Government or no Government. 1t was
better few days ago to deal even with
a junta in Panama than with a mob
after Colombia withdrew.
DANA puts the law lucidly and con-
cisely in Que of his notes to WHEATON,
when he says that in case Of a conclusion
of treaty, on terms looking to general
and permanent relations, the tests are
"the necessities of the foreign recogniz-
ing State and the truth Of the facts implied
that the State treated with was at the
time In the condition de facto Of an inde-
pendent State.
President RoosEvELT's Adminstra-
tion must stand or fall by that test, first,
of popular acquiescence at Panama in
rule by the junta, and, next, by the
railway or the canal necessity, coupled
with the corollsry, which goes without
saying, that the Administration did not
intervene in Panama to create the Gov
ernment and the result that 1t afterward
recognized.
If it could turn out, which is incredible,
that, as Senator MORGAN has intimated,
the Administration created the revolt in
Panama, and engaged to hold Colombia in
check till Panama had been recognized,
and Canal treaty concluded, the affair
would have different aspect.
The reprinted document discloses that
WALKER started from California with a
band of flibusters, invaded Nicaragua,
got possession of the seat of Government
and set up President, possibly one OF
his band, who sent another Of the
band, FRENCH, to Washington as Minis
ter of Nicaragua. The American Minis
ter at Granada had tender side for
filibusters, and he recognized the new
Government, for which he got sharp
admonition from MARCY on Dec. 7, 1855.
That letter and the one Of Nov. 8, 1856,
are q neat and concise exposition of the
American law of recognition.
When FRENCH presented himself he
was not received by the President, for
the reasons set forth by him on pages
) and of the document. Afterward
came another Minister from Nicaragua
"a citizen of that State and not of Cali
fornia, as was FRENcH-and when MARCY
had become convinced that the new
Minister came from de facto Govern
ment, aoquiesced in by greater part of
the Nicaraguans, he was received, despite
the fact that the new Government had
it's starting point in California.
MIR. Bryan In Nottingham.