tative relations among themselves.

The Nicaragua Canal Commission, under the chairmanship of Rear-Admiral
John G. Walker, appointed July 24, 1897, under the authority of a
provision in the sundry civil act of June 4 of that year, has nearly
completed its labors, and the results of its exhaustive inquiry into the
proper route, the feasibility, and the cost of construction of an
interoceanic canal by a Nicaraguan route will be laid before you. In the
performance of its task the commission received all possible courtesy
and assistance from the Governments of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, which
thus testified their appreciation of the importance of giving a speedy
and practical outcome to the great project that has for so many years
engrossed the attention of the respective countries.

As the scope of the recent inquiry embraced the whole subject, with the
aim of making plans and surveys for a canal by the most convenient
route, it necessarily included a review of the results of previous
surveys and plans, and in particular those adopted by the Maritime Canal
Company under its existing concessions from Nicaragua and Costa Rica, so
that to this extent those grants necessarily hold as essential a part
in the deliberations and conclusions of the Canal Commission as they
have held and must needs hold in the discussion of the matter by the
Congress. Under these circumstances and in view of overtures made to the
Governments of Nicaragua and Costa Rica by other parties for a new canal
concession predicated on the assumed approaching lapse of the contracts
of the Maritime Canal Company with those States, I have not hesitated
to express my conviction that considerations of expediency and
international policy as between the several governments interested in
the construction and control of an interoceanic canal by this route
require the maintenance of the _status quo_ until the Canal
Commission shall have reported and the United States Congress shall have
had the opportunity to pass finally upon the whole matter during the
present session, without prejudice by reason of any change in the
existing conditions.

Nevertheless, it appears that the Government of Nicaragua, as one
of its last sovereign acts before merging its powers in those of the
newly formed United States of Central America, has granted an optional
concession to another association, to become effective on the expiration
of the present grant. It does not appear what surveys