was continued, or at least not wholly interrupted. Meanwhile the people of the United States were not greatly displeased at the collapse of the great French enterprise. T

the canal itself. Outside the Panama route this was the only actual work of canal construction performed in Isthmian and Central America. The project failed owing to the great depression of trade which occurred in 1893 and the impossibility of getting more capital. It should be noticed that these projects of constructing an American canal at Nicaragua qui

nal necessity. At the beginning of the war the battleship Oregon, one of the finest ships in the United States navy, lay off San Francisco. She was not wanted there, but she was very badly wanted at the West Indies, the main scene of the naval struggle. To get there the Oregon had to sail 13,400 miles round Cape Horn instead of 4,600 miles via a Panama canal, if there had been one. Everybody in the United States knew that the precious warship was making that pe

e isthmus and investigate both Nicaragua and Panama. We shall have something to say about the report of this commission, which was issued in December 1900. But already, before that appeared, negotiations had been set on foot between the United S

oards demanded by the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and the prospective expansion of our influence and commerce in the Pacific, and that our national policy

a empire, had greatly strengthened the case for a canal owned and controlled by the United States, and bringing the easter

ttempt, however, was unsuccessful. The American people were annoyed to find that it did not abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, but left the United States with something very short of that independent control which they desired. Amendments were introduced, and,

the agreement, and this pertinacity, together with the changed conditions since the Spanish-American War, may have weighed with the British government. Then the Alaskan boundary question was at that time still under discussion between the two countries, and a settlement was proving difficult. An obstinate resistance to the United States over the

ed by the Senate without amendment, and was ultimately concluded b

onstruction of a canal (mentioning no particular route) "under the auspices of the government of the United States," which country is "to have and enjoy all the rights incident to such construction, as well as the exclusive right

time of peace or war for

canal and its term

for war-vessels enterin

y police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder. A treaty, however, subsequently concl

ips that make use of the same, or the railways and auxiliary works, the United States shall have the right, at all times

s and other conditions of traffic through the canal. The meaning of the secti

ire equality; so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect o

ction and control which Great Britain enjoyed under the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty. In fact, Mr. Hay, in a memorandum he sent to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, described the treaty as a sort of contract between Great Britain and th

o their "coastwise" traffic. Under the term "coastwise" the United States include the sea-traffic not only between ports along a continuous coast, but between such points as San Francisco or Washington and the Philippin

m or North Sea Canal to the Netherlands. Its status is governed by treaties which impose certain obligations and restrictions upon the United States and lay down certain rules of administration. It was intended at first to make the status of the Panama and the Suez Canal identical. But there are considerable differences. The "n

s applied to the new waterway. The position will be as nearly as poss

is preserved. But if there be a war in which the United States is a party, the circumstances of fortification and operation by the United States in fact render it impossible for the other belligerent to use the canal, and are intended to have that effect. This being so,

aty also lays down the rules which are to be observed by the ships of war of a belligerent using the canal and the waters adjacent to

TNO

ppend

Canal and its Ma