The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-06-18
A Foreign View.

America is preparing a great fete
for the world with the opening of the
Panama Canal. There will be two
events, both full of significance. 1t is
not even yet so long ago that San
Francisco lay in ruins; it is rebuilt
now, as busy as ever at the old stand;
| and the joining of the eastern and
western coasts of America will be eel
ebrated by a San Francisco exhibition,
which, of course, is to De the greatest
thing in the world. There will there
fore be double sign of vitality, of
uncomfortable determination, and
mastery of practical things, in the
canal year.
1t seemed likely at first that there
would be some considerable friction
between the United States and Eng
land over the opening of the canal 1t
was urged from London that the
American people had no right to for
tify the canal or to allow any advan-
tage in it's use to American traffic,
commercial or even military. The
terms of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of
1850 were repeatedly urged in proof
that the canal must be in every re-
spect neutral in use, common property
in practice, however they might be
called American in ownership, and be
so in the hard fact of payment. A
change has come over the English
press on this point, as on others,
where America, in its natural, free
way, holds a strong opinion. The new
er English feeling is SHOWN by the
Times, which, in an article, Politics
and the Panama Canal" cites with
full, though not quite happy assent,
the presidential declaration of so early
a date as 1889. President Hayes, in
his messages to congress, stated en-
phatically that the policy of the Unit
ed States was for a canal under Amer
lean control, and based this need upon
the fact that the interoceanic canal
must change essentially the relations
between the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts, and between the United States
and the entire rest of the world.
Mr.. Roosevelt even went a littla
further than the canal when he re-
markell ITO America must belong
the dominion of the Pacific" And It
is agreed that behind this almost un-
varied American opinion lies the mas
tering facts that the national in
stinct of se1f-preservation cannot be
blind to the absolute Importance of
ownership of the great new way which
slices America in half like a pear.
The principle therefore is accepted;
the Panama Canal is to be as Ameri-
can as the Thames is English. The
only point remaining to fight is that
of the subsidies and to1l-relief by
which II is proposed to give American
vessels an advantage in the use of the
new channel. Even here the right
is, however, reluctantly conceded; the
battle is to be fought on other
grounds. The matter is being taken
in the most anliab1e way; it is pointed
out to America that to give such ad-
vantages to American shipping would
be bad policy in the long run, and
really ought to be avoided
The argument urged is not very
convincing, since 1t amounts merely to
the suggestion that the United States
would displease the Latin-Amerfcan
peoples unless they leave the canal.
really as we'll as on paper, free to ali
nations on equal terms. good many
Americans are said to hold this IfaxsS
and it is certain that the South Amer.
lean nations assert 1t. But the United
States. IL 1t is moved from its present
attitude will move by its own Will and
in view of its own advantage: it is lit
tie use debating to a sovereign nation
like America, that has never Welded
to any European Representations
what it had better do with the thinG
which 1t declares its own forever
Freeman's Journal. Dublin.