ty that it had made with Great Britain concerning
the Panama Canal. There was a certain embarrassment involved in
preaching unselfishness in Mexico and Central America at a time when the
United States was practising selfishness and dishonesty in Panama. For,
in the opinion of the Ambassador and that of most other dispassionate
students of the Panama treaty, the American policy on Panama tolls
amounted to nothing less.

To one unskilled in legal technicalities, the Panama controversy
involved no great difficulty. Since 1850 the United States and Great
Britain had had a written understanding upon the construction of the
Panama Canal. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, which was adopted that year,
provided that the two countries should share equally in the construction
and control of the proposed waterway across the Isthmus. This idea of
joint control had always rankled in the United States, and in 1901 the
American Government persuaded Great Britain to abrogate the
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and agree to another--the Hay-Pauncefote--which
transferred the rights of ownership and construction exclusively to this
country. In consenting to this important change, Great Britain had made
only one stipulation. "The Canal," so read Article III of the Convention
of 1901, "shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and war of
all nations observing these rules, on terms of entire equality, so that
there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its
citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of
traffic, or otherwise." It would seem as though the English language
could utter no thought more clearly than this. The agreement said, not
inferentially, but in so many words, that the "charges" levied on the
ships of "all nations" that used the Canal should be the same. The
history of British-American negotiations on the subject of the Canal had
always emphasized this same point. All American witnesses to drawing the
Treaty have testified that this was the American understanding. The
correspondence of John Hay, who was Secretary of State at the time,
makes it clear that this was the agreement. Mr. Elihu Root, who, as
Secretary of War, sat next to John Hay in the Cabinet which authorized
the treaty, has taken the same stand. The man who conducted the
preliminary negotiations with Lord Salisbury, Mr. Henry White, has
emphasized the same point. Mr. Joseph H. Choate, who, as American
Ambassador to Great Britain in 1901,