nother, this liability should under no circumstances be
neglected in determining the type or plan. It does not require
argument that the use of the canal by the United States will cease
if the control passes to a hostile power between which and the
United States a state of war exists, but this is true whatever the
type may be.

As the majority of the committee point out, "no proposition affecting
this project is now before the Senate." In my opinion, none is
necessary. The neutrality of the canal is, by implication at least,
assured, and we have pledged our national good faith that the waterway
will be open to all the nations of the world. Some time in the future,
when the canal is completed and an accepted fact, it may be advisable to
adopt the course pursued in the case of the Suez Canal. The original
concession for that canal provided, by section 3, for its subsequent
fortification, but this was never carried into effect. By a convention
dated December 22, 1888, among Great Britain, Germany, and other
nations, the free navigation of the Suez Canal was made a matter of
international agreement, and the same has been reprinted as Senate
Document No. 151, Fifty-sixth Congress, first session, under date of
February 6, 1900.

This, in any event, is a problem of the future. The canal is the
property of the United States, and we shall always retain control. In
the event of war we shall rely with confidence upon our navy to protect
our interests on the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea, but even more may
we rely upon the all-important fact that it could never be to the
interest of any other nation sufficient in size to be at war with us to
destroy this international waterway, which will become an important
necessity to the commerce of each and all. No neutral nation engaged in
extensive commerce or trade would for an instant allow another nation at
war with the United States to injure or destroy the canal or to
seriously interfere with the traffic passing through it. To destroy as
much as a single lock, to injure as much as a single gate, would be
considered equal to an act of war by every commercial nation of the
earth. In this simple fact lies a greater assurance of safety than in
all the treaties which might be made or in all the fortifications which
might be established to protect the canal.

The majority of the committee well say in their report, that the power
of mischief "is within easy reach