The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-05-06
The Clayton-Bultuer Treaty
By LEWIS NIXON
 Article No. 2

whole responsibility for upholding these rules and thereby maintaining the neu- trality of the canal would henceforth be assumed by the United States" Equality of treatment was the return for joint assumption of burden and re- sponsibility, yet we find men so lost to fairness that their contention is that since q certain privilege was obtained
 through joining in protection, this priv
 ilege must continue even though Great | Britain is relieved from this expensive
 and burdensome responsibility. That is,
 in absence of explicit yielding to Great Britain our rights must be limited or destroyed by implication.
 But happily the wording of the Hay Pauncetote treaty Is clear upon this point.
 Is it equal treaty" or neutrality that is carried over from Article S9
 The preamble to the treaty says: "The ob- jections that may arise from the Clayton Bulwer convention to the construction
 If the canal are to be removed without nnpairing the general principle of neu.
 tralization established in Article s" We
 supersede the treaty in every other respect,
 The preamble to Article of the Hay Pauncefote treaty says that the United States adopts as the basis of neutraliza- ton certain rules substantially as efn- bodied in the Suez Canal treaty. Ana further light is thrown upon it's meaning by the fact that in modifying the Sue3
 rules only such parts as provided for neutralization were retained and all rel erences to equal treatment thrown out. Yet Americans are to be found who contend that so long as Great Britain is no lcnger permitted to join in protec- tion that neutrality secured by our pro lection is the same as equal treatment i T1rf Oi i.,t shows tla demoralization of the public mind on this question when such preposferous con clusions are taken seriously
 MT. Hay on this point said in referring to Article 5 of the y-Pauncefote | treaty:
 Tt is thought to do entire justice to the reasonable demands of Great Britain in preserving the general principle Of naturalization and at the same time to relieve the United States of the vague, indefinite and embarrassing obligations
 imposed by the eighth article of the Clayton Bulwer convention. DO not assume patient reader that we could not have built a canal withou.
 Great Britain's consent. This all too general assumption confesses a loyal ] subserviency abhorrert to Americans-at least to the far greater part of them. The Clayton BuIwer convention was will fully and continually violated by Great Britain, but we were not goaded to abrogate it even though justified The committee on foreign relations of the United States Senate presented to the Fifty-first Congress report which con- cluded:
 .The United States is at present under no obligation, measured by the terms of the convention, the principles of public law or good morals, to refrain from pro- noting In any way it may deem best for ipto a this canal. without regard to anything contained in the convention of 1850. X list of this committee on this great question all ringing true, is enlghtenins. They were: John sherman, chairman George F. Edmonds, William r. Frye, William NJ Evarts, ]. N. polph, John T. Morgan. Joseph F.. Brown. Fl. R. Payne, J. B. Eustis. Sherman and, Evarts after wards became secretaries of state
 Sir Edward Grey says that if we had
 built the canal under the Clayton Bull wer treaty we must have given British
 vessels equal treatment with our own
 and then conveniently forgets that the
 -Pauncefote treaty supersedes the Claytone Bulwer treaty.
 It is plain to be seen that if the joint
 protection by which neutrality and equal treatment were to be secured in the Clay ton-Bulwer convention had been extend- ed by treaty stipulation that claim for equal treatment might hold. Since loo" we have been resisting adroit af- forts to obtain such joint contract exten- sion.
 And with persistency and state craft to be admired, we find the first
 draft of the Hay-Pauncefote submitted in the negotiations, embodying sur render on this principle, and yet as fast as beaten on one demand another was presented.
 | Happily for our country the Influence of A firm and consistent traditional pol icy exerted for 50 years prevented such
 surrender
 Can there be Americans so base as 1 to support such surrender in spirit of partisanship?