a new treaty is introduced and contracted or signed between the high contracting parties, which eliminates that, it carries with it under the law of construction the same that I contended for in the matter of fortification. And the second Hay-Pauncefote treaty has legally written in it, written under the law of nations, an absolute agreement, so far as Great Britain is concerned, that we may discriminate, and the only thing against it is the construction now sought, that as we say that we will treat all nations observing our rules alike. therefore it means ourselves.

My contention is this, gentlemen-and I voted for the second HayPauncefote treaty because the matter of neutralization was taken away from Great Britain. She does not agree to spend tuppence hapenny to police the high seas and keep that canal free from blockade, or in any war or any controversy between any nations of the world, directly or indirectly interesting her or the United States, or remotely or contingently involving interests of Great Britain or the United States, she could not be called upon under the treaty now existing to contribute one man or one gun to help the United States maintain the neutrality. And that is the reason she has abandoned the proposition that we may treat our commerce in any way we see fit. I have said to you that, in my opinion, the treaty could not have been passed if the Senate had dreamed that such a construction as now asked for had been right. I have said to you that I can only testify as to one vote, but let me call your attention and show you the men and kind of men who voted for the Bard amendment. I voted for it because I became convinced that the coastwise trade, being a domestic concern of the United States, was a question for legislation, not a question for treaty construction. Otherwise I should not have voted for it. Let me read to you a list of the few men who voted for the Bard amendment in the first Hay-Pauncefote treaty and who afterwards voted for the final passage of the HayPauncefote treaty No. 2. I have a right to assume that the same mental processes affected them that did me. I voted for it because I was absolutely and unequivocally and forever opposed to making any treaty with any country that would prevent us from deciding for ourselves the treatment to be given to our interstate commerce trade. And yet, when the construction was given to it, and Great Britain renounced her right to control by assisting in neutralization and left the United States, instead of the two high contracting parties to fix the rules of neutralization, I believed that, having adopted that treaty and the real rules of neutralization having been fixed, of course, in the preamble, in the communication sent to the Senate by Mr. Roosevelt, which read, "without impairing the 'general principle' of neutralization established in article 8 of that convention," the treaty itself construes what article 8 means. Every student of international law knows that the guarantee of neutralization by two or three nations is of a nature different, and ought to be different, from the guarantee of neutralization by an independent nation guaranteeing neutrality in its own rivers, in its own harbors, or its own canal.

Mr. Bard, a Senator from California, himself voted for the final ratification of the last treaty, and Senators Bate, Berry, and Senator Cockrell from Missouri, who voted for the Bard amendment the year before. And I assume that those gentlemen-and I know that some

of them did; I can not remember as it is some years ago and I am not as young as I feel sometimes-I know that some of them had the same reason that I had. I felt that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty under the direction of Mr. Roosevelt-I can see the acting chairman [Senator Bristow] smile now, because we owe it to Mr. Roosevelt more than anyone else for getting a treaty that made it an American canal. If Great Britain had adopted the first Hay-Pauncefote treaty it would have been vastly different because there was an affirmative agreement never to fortify.

Some of the men voting in favor of the final ratification were Senators Bard, Bate, Berry, Cockrell, Heitfeld, Martin, Mason, Money.

My distinct recollection is that I heard from Senator Money one of the most learned dissertations upon the diplomatic history of the Isthmian Canal of any man to whom I ever listened. I remember very well his address in the Senate. He spoke without notes. In fact his eyes were impaired so he could not see. I remember the position he took in the matter. I remember that his general thought and trend were against making any treaty with Great Britain at all, stated at some time during his discussion or some time during my intercourse with him. But he voted as did Mr. Cockrell, Mr. Bate, and all of the gentlemen I have named, for the ratification of the present treaty, and I assume that they voted for it from the samenot necessarily the same-but in a general way the same mental processes probably affected them that did me. I saw there was no neutralization guaranteed by Great Britain. I saw that we had assumed an independence that we were entitled to among the nations of the world.

The first Hay-Pauncefote treaty contained the principle of neutrality, and they agreed at the close of that treaty that the high contracting parties would immediately upon the exchange of the ratification of this convention bring it to the notice of the other powers and invite them to adhere to it. But at the close of the second Hay-Pauncefote treaty there was no occasion for them to invite the world to notice what they had done, for they had done. nothing except to abandon the thing they thought they had, and did it as a matter of neighborly kindness, and we consented to making a treaty with Great Britain by which they abandoned all the things they had claimed under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

Gentlemen of the committee, has it not occurred to you as rather remarkable-not to my old colleague of the House and the Senate, because he was present and knows-but is it not rather remarkable that none of the things we fought for in the first treaty were even offered as amendments to the second Hay-Pauncefote treaty? That treaty was ratified by an overwhelming vote: I do not think there were a dozen votes against it. My recollection is that on the ratification of that Hay-Pauncefote treaty No. 2 the ratification showed a vote of 72 to 6, and yet there were 25 or 30 men at different times who voted right along for these very amendments, and yet when the time came we thought that Col. Roosevelt and John Hay had negotiated a treaty that settled forever the question of neutralization, settled forever the question as to the right of fortification, and Í thought I may have been overreached-it may have been that I was deceived or that I was feeble minded on that particular occasion-but I thought that we left the United States with all the rights

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incident to ownership, and the right to pay for it, and Great Britain then withdrew her rights in the old Clayton-Bulwer treaty.

Why did she guarantee the protection? Read your article 8, and you will find that because we were not to discriminate in favor of our shipping. And she states there that any time we discriminateArticle VIII of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty-any time we discriminate in favor of American commerce against English commerce she would withdraw this protection, giving us a six months' notice. She did withdraw that protection. She is under no contractual agreement. She is under no moral obligation to guarantee any neutrality or to help the United States in case of conflict against any other nation that should blockade the canal or violate the six great rules of neutrality which were laid down by the people of the United States. Mr. Cockran says:

I do not agree with Senator Hoar about trusteeship. This Government is a trustee, but the cestuis que trust are the States, and they in turn are the trustees, and the cestuis que trust are the people of the United States.

They are not trustees for the world, and I think my good friend, Senator Simmons, will remember the bitter arraignment against the administration of Mr. McKinley by some of our Senators of his party and mine that we should call in the world to help us guarantee neutrality in our own property. Great Britain withdrew the guarantee of neutrality. Therefore we were able to vote for it, and you will notice at the close that no other nation attempts to notify the other nations of the world except the United States.

International law, as you are aware, is not based on the higher rules of ethics, of morals. You can not find one nation trespassing on the rights of another that some precedent can not be found in international law for it. The common law is a step forward. Equity is still another step toward the teachings of the Nazarene. In equity if they want to reform a contract, if there is a mistake made in the construction, to reform it you must show that there was a mutual mistake. In equity if you want to reform a contract between you and me, Mr. Chairman, you must show that that mistake was mutual and that you conveyed another quarter section of land from what you intended and from what I intended. If there has been a mistake in this, the sovereign people of this country have construed it. I confessed I was never so surprised in my life of course I heard occasionally some newspaper publicists who would say, and they did say, we had no right to put our war ships through the canal; that we had no right to fortify. I am not familiar with the correspondence carried on between our Secretary of State and home office of Great Britain, but it was conceded and must have been conceded upon the ground of the construction that I have showed you, namely, that they abandoned that and gave us the right to fortify our own property.

In equity, I say this matter has been submitted to the American people. The great Democratic Party, the great President of the United States-and I confess as bitter a Republican as I am, that when your party stood for independence for the Filipinos, and an announcement of free tolls for American shipping, I hated to vote against your candidate for President because I regarded them as the two great American questions, more paramount than the tariff or the increase in the currency.

The American people have adopted it. This is a conscientious people. I admit to you that certain newspapers who stood for free coastwise trade have changed front, but if you are to judge of public sentiment by the press because every gentleman in a representative capacity in the House or the Senate wants to represent his peopleit is overwhelmingly in favor of free tolls.

There has been some talk about arbitration. Why should you arbitrate purely a domestic question? I believe in the peace that is coming to the world. I believe it is coming gradually. I have been working with the so-called peace fellows for international arbitration. But, gentlemen, when you arbitrate a question of purely domestic policy you are letting the nose of the camel into the American tent, and you do not know when they will get the hindquarters in. Suppose by way of illustration we arbitrate this bill, send it to the court of The Hague, and they decide we have no right to give a preference to our coastwise trade. The Government comes back in obedience to the law, and the administration who has made the trade, of course, will be swept horse, foot, and dragoon out of power. The people will not stand for this thing. They may be mistaken, but their minds are fixed on it, and they will elect a Congress who says we can not give a subsidy to these fellows by free tolls, but we will vote a subsidy to every boat that goes through equal to the amount of tolls they pay. Then this diplomatic good old mother of ours on the other side of the water comes over and says by another Pauncefote, "Oh, but you are doing indirectly what under your treaty we say you can not do directly."

Then you are forced to another arbitration to see whether your Congress can pass a law taking care of domestic affairs. The best time to stop all proposals of arbitration resulting in discussing or settling domestic affairs is to stop it before it begins. The family rule applies. If a man came to your house and said, "Your wife must not dance the tango; she ought not to wear that sort of a dress; and she ought to go to my church," you would kick him out of your house just as quick as God Almighty gave you strength to do it. He is interfering in your domestic affairs, and when any other country in the world says to this country, "Gentlemen, you must not in your interstate commerce, in carrying in American ships in American waters between American shore lines, you must not do anything to help your own trade, to help your shipments of hardwood lumber from the South and the yellow pine from the West," just that quick you have entered into a dangerous position, and you do not make for peace, but you make for trouble, you make for war.

but

Gentlemen, I have taken all the time I intended to take. I am very much obliged to you. I wish this committee could have the benefit of Senator Money's address upon the diplomatic history of this canal. It has absolutely been misconceived. Senators are saying we sought the treaty. Sure we did. We had to seek it. When we were tired of the Mexican War, and did not want war, peace, Great Britain went to the mouth of the San Juan River, put up the English flag in violation of the Monroe doctrine, elected a colored boy king of the Mosquito Indians, announced her British Majesty suzerain of the Mosquito Indians, and then demanded the right to enter into the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. If she should do it now it would be a different thing, but after the close of the war she

forced herself into the diplomacy; she sent a sailing vessel there. She knew we wanted a canal.

Although it had been presented to this country in 1825, nobody dreamed of it until we got to California in our treaty with Mexico, and then Great Britain knew before we did. And, honestly, gentlemen of the committee, it gives me a pain when I hear Senators say that we sought the treaty. Just as Lincoln sought to make peace with Great Britain in the Mason-Slidell affair, we had to seek the treaty. She stood there with her flag in violation of the Monroe doctrine. She forced us into the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and she held herself there for half a century, not to help us build a canal, but by diplomacy to delay its construction, that the Suez Canal might be built, that the royal family might as stockholders control. I say to you, gentlemen, that the diplomatic history of this canal—and I have no feeling about it now, because the English Government has improved to-day, we hope. But to say now to the American people that there is some other matter, some delicate matter-one Senator said the nations of the world disapproved of our conduct. When, in the name of God, did they ever approve it since we established the doctrine of self-government-a Republic? Are we to throw away our birthright, and are we to throw away our right to our own property as we would throw in a few chips with a whetstone in making a trade?

I have the greatest respect for every gentleman's opinion. I am very sorry it should be discussed from any partisan standpoint. I have not so discussed it. I am sorry that gentlemen who are opposed to me think that we are trying to build up a trust, and I am sorry that gentlemen who agree with me think that Great Britain is here trying to buy the Government of the United States or the Senators or Representatives who pass upon these questions. I have no sympathy with that sort of talk; but I do sympathize with the thought, because it is a matter of great interest to me and my people. We have spent for a drainage canal, with a view of making a deep waterway, I suppose, $30,000,000, and it is now within 15 or 20 miles of the Illinois River, and that will make a deep waterway from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico. We believe in water transportation. We know it is cheaper; but what I am most earnestly opposed to is that you repeal this act because there is somewhere, somehow, some hidden reason, that some nation is demanding something, which to me seems with all due respect to your opinion, Mr. Chairman, and those of others the most humiliating thing that has happened in American diplomacy since 1812, or, indeed, in all the history of the United States.

I thank you.

Senator SIMMONS. Senator Mason, I want to read you some extracts from the history of our efforts to bring about an understanding with Great Britain about this treaty that have been furnished me by Mr. Stone.

Senator THOMAS. Pardon me just a moment. Mr. Chairman, I was requested by the Secretary of the Senate, I think it was, to say, when I came over here, that the documents which are requested from the office of the Secretary of State had been delivered to him and were at the disposal of the committee.