with the lumber business on the Pacific coast is owned by a select few old-timers in the lumber business who have domineered the lumber business of California and the west coast of South America for years. Even at this date it is quite impossible for anybody to break in the lumber business in California unless the business is backed up by the ownership or control of lumber-carrying vessels, and said vessels are owned by very few men or firms engaged in lumber manufacturing as well as transportation. The average millman who is not a shipowner would derive no benefit whatever, and as to the British Columbia lumber coming in this country, the well-known fact that manufacturing and producing lumber costs more in British Columbia than it does here would refute that argument. All manufacturers in British Columbia will admit that, even the American timber owners who are so largely interested in British Columbia. There will be no time in the next 20 years when British Columbia, owing to the large home market they have for their products, will have anything to offer, generally speaking, in lumber for sale and disposition to the United States. Now, as to shingles. One manufacturing plant at Grays Harbor, in this State, make a specialty of manufacturing shingles exactly like the British Columbia shingle and branded the same. They are the ordinary shingles, measuring 6 butts to 2 inches, 16-inch shingles, that brand being known as 3X shingles at British Columbia. This manufacturing plant on Grays Harbor make those shingles and sell them in Canadian territory right now, and have been doing it for some time. They realize 35 cents per thousand more for those shingles during the present market condition, and the extra cost of the shingles is very nominal, compared with the ordinary grade of extra Star Red Cedar Shingles manufactured so generally in the State of Washington. Senator ROBERT L. OWEN, P. C. LEONARD, Importer and Exporter of Lamber. FARM AND FIRESIDE, Berkeley Springs, W. Va., March 28, 1914. Senate Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR SENATOR: I regard the maintenance of reciprocal relations with Canada on the use of waterways as one of the most important business matters before the American commercial world; and in this connection I am sending you a clipping from s recent issue of the Hay Trade Journal, which shows a net tonnage through Canadian canals of 44,901,804 tons, less than one-seventh of which was freight of Canadian origin. More than three-fourths of this vast tonnage several times what the Panams Canal can ever expect to carry-was low grade freight, said by the clipping to be products of mines; but I suspect that this will be found on investigation much in the way of forest products. Sixteen per cent was composed of agricultural products. In other words, the farmers of the interior of the United States are now shipping through Canadian waterways more grain and other agricultural produce than the Canadian themselves ship. It scarcely seems to be a business proposition, to begin to play fast and loose in the interpretation of treaties in which Canada is interested. Yours, sincerely, HERBERT QUICK. P. S.-I am inclosing herewith a carbon of an editorial I have just written for the Newspaper Enterprise Association. HERBERT QUICK'S COMMENT-CANAL WILL FORCE MIDWEST TO DEVELOP RIVER TRANSPORTATION TO DEFEND TRADE AND INDUSTRY. The Panama Canal has always been in great favor in the central portions of the country as a prospective regulator of railway rates. It is time, however, for the manufacturers of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and all regions similarly situated to awake to the probabilities of changed business conditions when the canal is opened. Can they hold their western business when the Eastern and Southern States are able to ship through the canal? At this time the midwestern manufacturer is favorably situated for getting business for several hundred miles back from the Pacifice oast. These regions have to be served by railways, and the midwest has the shortest haul. But suppose that with the canal opened the eastern manufacturers are able to ship for half or two-thirds the railway tariff? Will they not be able to distribute from San Francisco, Portland, Seattle on such terms as to empower them to take the business from the midwesterners? Will not the water rates from the eastern and Gulf ports via the canal plus the railway rates eastward from the Pacific be less than rail rates from the midwest? In other words, will not the coast region which can most easily be served from the Pacific ports be extended hundreds of miles eastward to the prejudice of the midwestern manufacturer and the advantage of the eastern concerns? So good an authority as the transportation editor of the London Times thinks so. The remedy, however, is in the hands of the midwest. If a waterway brings on a great new commercial fight, waterways, if any develop, is more waterways. The Missouri, the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and many other midwestern rivers must give the same treatment which the Rhine, the Danube, the Volga, and other European rivers have had. They must be improved. Their channels must be deepened. New sorts of boats must be built for the economical handling of freight. Public docks and wharves must be equipped with modern freight-handling machinery. Business must go to the Gulf by water and by water to the Pacific coast-and to all the rest of the world. Within two years men who have always laughed at these streams will have ceased to laugh. They will be organizing to promote waterway development to save their own financial skins. [Collier's.] THE PANAMA TOLLS. The canal shall be free and open to the vessels * in of all nations on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination * respect to the charges of traffic. So runs rule 1 of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. And it is a highly creditable feeling on the part of many Americans, reflected by President Wilson, that we can not afford to be unfair or unfaithful to our promises simply because we happen to be strong. Volumes have been published about this matter of tolls through the Panama Canal, but the biggest book would be the one containing what people don't know about it. We are beginning to suspect, at least, that the country generally will not profit by the free-passage provisions of the law signed by Mr. Taft under exceptional conditions, and that the exemptions in favor of our coastwise traffic will serve only to take expenses off the shoulders of the American shipping combine. This trust is based largely on a monopoly of wharfage and steel mills and shipbuilding. With free steel, free ore, and the wharf-building activity of cities like New York, Boston, and the Pacific ports, competition may spring up in our coastwise trade, giving consumers, sooner or later, the benefits of a free canal. But, as things stand, the trust will get the benefit of free passage, and the United States will only operate a cheap waterway for the great captains of industry to make money by. This is probably the President's view--part of it. The whole free-tolls proposition is as impolitic as it is scaly. We have more to ask of Great Britain in the way of unrestricted navigation of our intercommunicating waterways than she has to ask of us at Panama. Canada is about to build the Georgian Bay Ship Canal from French River to the Ottawa, 25 feet deep and capacious enough to carry the greatest lake freighters or standard ocean-going tramps. This system will flank our whole lake and interior basin commerce. The Erie Barge Canal is a tadpole ditch compared with it. Ships sailing from Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth, or West Superior will be able to reach the ocean via Montreal by this route, and that too without breaking bulk on the mileage it would take to reach Erie, Pa., by the present route. Canada will then command a commerce far more important to us than that of the Panama Canal. She will have the whip hand of us to an extent quite as great as that which we can get on Great Britain by wrenching a treaty from its plain meaning. And she will be able to say, "You made a treaty agreeing to let the ships of all nations through the Panama Canal on equal terms. You broke that treaty by letting your own coastwise ships through free and refusing the same treatment to our coastwise ships. Now we'll use our advantage in the Great Lakes outlet." Our treaty as to the Great Lakes passages is that they shall be open to the shipping of both nations on equal terms. But what will that mean once we begin playing fast and loose with the words "on equal terms?" We are wrong in this matter, and the sooner we get right the better. We are wrong, not only as regards Great Britain and our relations with Mexico, Colombia (both a Pacific and an Atlantic power), and Canada, but also with Germany, France, and Portugal. We are wrong with the whole world. Our case is like that of the private citizen who had done something that was denounced as criminal. "Creeminal," repeated a Frenchwoman. "Creeminal. Eet is vorse zan creeminal. Eet is posi tively silly.' Falseness to obligations, or a squirmy, wriggling, pettifogging attitude toward them on our part can not be justified by "precedents. If England drove a sharp bargain with us long years ago, that is (to-day) neither here nor there. A bargain is a bargain. We are too big to welch. Moreover-and therefore-the country should support the President in his determination to repeal the controverted Panama-tolls arrangement. The Adamson joint resolution should be passed by Congress-and passed now. Hon. ROBT. L. OWEN, United States Senate, Washington, D. C. OKLAHOMA TRAFFIC ASSOCIATION, DEAR SIR: Our organization wishes briefly to commend your action in supporting President Wilson's desire to repeal that portion of the bill relating to the Panama Canal which exempts American coastwise vessels from the payment of tolls. Our experience with the coastwise steamships plying between New York and Gulf ports has been that all of the lines are practically owned by the same interests, that there is no competition between the steamship lines, and further, that they are dominated by the rail carriers. We assume that similar conditions prevail with the coastwise lines which would operate through the Panama Canal. So far as Oklahoma is concerned, if the rail carriers dominate the water lines and do as they have in the past, namely, refuse to make rates from Galveston to the State of Oklahoma which are as low as they make from Galveston to St. Paul, Minn., it would appear to us that very little benefit will accrue to this State from the Panama Canal in any event. In fact, at the present time the principal result which will accrue from the opening of the canal will be that goods from the Pacific Coast can be laid down at St. Louis, Memphis, and Kansas City at prices much lower than at points in the State of Oklahoma, though to-day the rates are on a parity. The argument which has been advanced by some of those opposing the repeal of this decision, that the exemption from tolls is a benefit to the farmers of the interior West, is a fallacy, as there are very few points in the interior to which the existing rail rates to or from the Gulf ports will permit the movement of traffic through the Panama Canal as against the all-rail routes. This organization is opposed to ship subsidy in any form, and believe that exemption from tolls in the Panama Canal is a form of subsidy which the general American public should not be forced to pay. Very truly, yours, W. V. HARDIE, Traffic Manager. [Western Union day letter.] EUREKA, CAL., April 1, 1914. I want to thank you for your vote on tolls exemption repeal. While I know you stood for the principle originally, yet we Democrats of the first district are glad that our district stood shoulder to shoulder with the President. Your attitude has made many friends. J. F. COONAN, Member Democratic State Executive Committee, First Congressional District. [Western Union day letter.] EUREKA, CAL., April 1, 1914. Hon. WILLIAM KENT, M. C., Washington, D. C. I desire to express my high appreciation of your splendid work in Congress. Your able support of our great President of his heroic struggle to wrench governmental powers from the control of the giants of special privilege is most praiseworthy. Your position on the tariff, the currency, the Mexican situation, and the canal-tolls matter is that of a true statesman. While it is true that many honorable Representatives honestly believe in exempting coastwise vessels from tolls, nevertheless I believe that all far-seeing men will commend the wisdom of repealing the act. It is refreshing to know that the clamor of political porch climbers and the ravings of malicious slanderers have not interrupted the progress of the President and his able followers in upholding the honor, dignity, and best interests of the Nation. L. F. PUTER, Chairman Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee. [Western Union night letter.] STOCKTON, CAL., April 6, 1914. Hon. WILLIAM KENT, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. It is not true that all the people of California are opposed to the repeal of the tolls subsidy. It is true that among our most thoughtful and independent citizens of all parties there is a growing conviction that President Wilson is right from the standpoint of international ethics and national economics. The hysterical appeal to racial prejudices and the covert attempt of the shipowners to secure a subsidy under the cover of patriotism must be apparent to every man who is truly independent and progressive minded. IRVING MARTIN, Editor (Stockton, Cal.) Daily Record, [Western Union night letter.] STOCKTON, CAL., April 6, 1914. Hon. WILLIAM KENT, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. As a newspaper man, I have been surprised at the favorable effect of the President's appeal on California people, who are coming to realize that the national honor and the right of the people to exemption from the tolls subsidy sought by the big shipowners constitute the real issue in the issue now before the Senate. A. L. BALKS, Editorial Writer, Record. (Thereupon, at 6 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned until to-morrow, Saturday, April 25, 1914, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.) AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, Philadelphia, Pa., April 21, 1914. MY DEAR SENATOR O'GORMAN: I desire to submit to you and through your courtesy to the Senate Committee on Interoceanic Canals some considerations relating to the proposed repeal of the toll-exemption clause of the Panama Canal act. In approaching this subject I fully realize the national as well as the international responsibilities involved, and appreciate the fact that wide differences of opinion exist amongst earnest and patriotic citizens as to the course which should be pursued by our Government. I am anxious, therefore, to avoid a statement which might seem either intolerant or dogmatic. The conclusions herewith presented are the result of a careful study of the subject extending over a considerable number of years. The repeal of the toll-exemption clause in the Panama Canal act may be approached from the different points of view which, while having a direct bearing on one another should, for the sake of clearness of presentation, be separately considered. In the first place: Is the exemption of American coastwise traffic from the payment of tolls a Bound principle of domestic policy? It is not my purpose to enter into a discussion of this aspect of the question further than to say that such exemption is not likely to be of any appreciable direct benefit to the shipper or of indirect benefit to the consumer. Furthermore, it has been pointed out time and again that an industry as highly protected as our coastwise traffic requires no further special privilege such as the toll exemption would involve. I am confiding myself to the merest reference to this 43756-14- 49 aspect of this question inasmuch as I desire to discuss at some length the relation of the toll-exemption clause to the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. If I am not mistaken, it was Secretary Hay who once said that there is a considerable portion of the American people who look upon a treaty as a document which gains everything for the United States and gives nothing to the other party. If we are willing to stand sponsors for this simple principle of interpretation before the nations of the civilized world, the interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty and all other treaties into which the United States may have entered or will enter presents but little difficulty. If, on the other hand, we are to maintain our position as a nation mindful of its international obligations, there would seem to be no escape from the conclusion that the provisions of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty place upon the United States the obligation of complete equality of treatment with reference to the merchant vessels of all nations. Viewing the situation solely as a question of treaty interpretation, there is a significant unanimity of opinion on this point amongst the international jurists of Europe and America. In reading the State documents relating to the question of Isthmian transit, and especially the American and British diplomatic correspondence bearing on the subject, one is impressed with the deep sense of world responsibility shown by the statesmen who conducted the negotiations. From the earliest mention of the subject the utterances both of American and British statesmen give evidence of a keen appreciation of the fact that the responsibility for this world enterprise, whether undertaken by one nation or a group of nations should be assumed in a spirit of trusteeship for the civilized world. Fortunately, for the success of the enterpire, the same high standards which marked the negotiations leading up to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty also characterize the preliminaries of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. When the United States approached Great Britain for the purpose of securing an agreement under which neither party should have exclusive control over the canal, Great Britain manifested a willingness to abandon some of the special and exclusive rights which she had secured in that section of the American continent. In agreeing to a declaration against exclusive control and in agreeing to a system of joint guarantee and protection, Great Britain was abandoning a position of vantage which she had acquired through her occupation of Greytown and her protectorate over the Mosquito Coast. The fact that with the growth of national power the United States might have exacted this concession as necessary to her national safety does not alter the fact that viewed from the standpoint of international relations, Great Britain was making a concession when she agreed to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. It is true that soon after the ratification of this treaty the United States began to chafe under the declaration against exclusive control and to show signs of discontent because of the joint declarations of protection and guarantee or neutrality. The half century that elapsed between the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and the Hay-Pauncefote treaty is a period marked by a series of unsuccessful attempts on the part of the United States to secure the substitution of exclusive American control for the system of joint guarantee. There were not wanting those who contended that conditions had so changed since the ratification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty that the United States should no longer deem itself bound by its provisions. Disregarding for the moment the ethics of such a procedure it is clear that the denunciation of this treaty, with all the consequences that might flow therefrom, was a possible policy for the United States to pursue. Those intrusted with the conduct of the foreign relations of the United States took a different view, preferring to secure from Great Britain, through orderly negotiation, those concessions which might have been wrung from her by more drastic measures. Great Britain was conscious of the fact that the people of the United States had resolutely determined upon exclusive control of the Isthmian Canal as necessary to the safety of the country. The consciousness of the fact that the United States would sooner or later embark upon a policy which would mean the overthrow of the ClaytonBulwer treaty was, no doubt, a most important factor in preparing the way for the negotiations of a new treaty. It is to the everlasting credit of American and British statesmanship that in the face of these difficulties a method was found by which the basic national interests of both countries were reconciled without loss of dignity, international influence, or national welfare. The Hay-Pauncefote treaty of 1901, viewed as an international agreement, replacing the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, again marks a concession on the part of Great Britain to the United States. Here again there may be those who contend that Great Britain only made the concession after it became clear that the United States would have adopted more drastic measures, if the concession had not been made. This does not alter the fact that in return for the concession made by Great |