Our Foreign Relations: Russia and Pauncefote

The English objections were stated with some show of suppressed temper. The new treaty was expressly a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1859, which has always stood as a menace against the building and control of a canal by the United States Government. The case for the English and Canadian objectors was summed up by the London Times, as follows: "The Hay-Pauncefote agreement gave America the right, which she does not posses under the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, to construct and control and inter-oceanic canal independently of this country. In other respects it has left that treaty unaltered. In particular it fully preserved the advantages we enjoy under the existing treaty relative to the neutrality of the canal and the protection of commerce under conditions of entire equality. We are quite alive to the value of those advantages, whatever certain members of the Senate may think or pretend to think. It is in consideration of them, and on condition only that they should be preserved, that we consented to the modifications desired by Mr. McKinley and by Mr. Hay. The two parts of the bargain are mutually dependent. We have not agreed and we are not going to agree to the proposed variation of our treaty rights save upon terms acceptable to ourselves. We shall stand upon those rights. It is not the custom of this country to conclude treaties of surrender with any nation -- even with those whose friendship we value most -- and that is a custom from which we have no mind to depart."

Senator Money represented a strong body of opinion when he wrote: "It is immaterial how many nations might guarantee the neutrality of a canal, or on what agreed terms any single nation might control it. The necessities of war would recognize neither treaties nor rights, and the canal would go to the strongest.

"It has been claimed that our west coast would be more easily defended by the ready transfer of our war-ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific; but it should be remembered that the fleets of Great Britain, Germany, and France could be as readily transferred by the same means, so that the attack would be as much facilitated as the defence. It is disputable, therefore, whether our security would be more assured without a considerable increase of our navy. But whatever the cost of such an increase might be to the United States, it would be preferable to the control of the canal by any foreign nation, or even a partnership with us in the control. The first would minimize American prestige in the Central and South American States, and the second would be a virtual surrender of the Monroe Doctrine, which this government cannot afford and would not make."

The time for ratification of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was extended, to allow time for further consideration.

The United States made demands for prompt reparation by the government of the Sultan for injuries suffered by American citizens in Armenia and elsewhere. The usual interminable delays were brought into play by the Turks, and a man-of-war was sent to the Bosphorus as a reminder. The message reported that our claims "everywhere give promise of early and satisfactory settlement. His Majesty's good disposition in this regard has been evinced by the issuance of an irade for rebuilding the American college at Harpoot."

The Hague Convention of the great powers me on the initiative of the Czar of Russia for the purpose of arranging a friendly court of arbitration that should do its utmost to prevent wars. The third Article of the Convention, signed and accepted by all, runs as follows:

"Article 3. Independently of this recourse, the signatory powers consider it to be useful that one or more powers who are strangers to the dispute should, on their own initiative and as far as circumstances will allow, offer their good offices or mediation to the states at variance. The right to offer good offices or mediation belongs to powers who are strangers to the dispute, even during the course of hostilities. The exercise of this right shall never be considered by one or other of the parties to the contest as an unfriendly act."

Under this proviso the President offered the good-will services of the United States in mediation between the Transvaal Republic and Great Britain, on the outbreak of their quarrel. The latter power very courteously but emphatically declined the proposal, as "Her Majesty's Government cannot accept the intervention of any other power." This sort of reply by one of the leading signers of a scheme for amicable intervention is not encouraging for the prospects of arbitration as facilitating the millennium.

American interests in the Far East have been discussed in the light of present facts; it is interesting to view them from the standpoint of those who think they foresee a closer relationship between the United States and Russia. In the North American Review a Russian writer, Vladimir Holmstrem, pleaded on various ingenious reasonings for a Russo-American Understanding. The appeal was made in view of possibilities in China, in which country, it was suggested, the two powers have kindred interests which may be more or less pooled. The writer dwells at length on English policy in China --

"because it shows the great gulf separating the conceptions of a Chinese policy entertained on the one hand by Russia and the United States, and by England on the other. The same remark might be made about other spheres of life and thought: to a student of English and American politics, it is clear how radically different are the ideas held by these two 'cousins across the water.'"