under. So that really the choice must lie between a neutral status guaranteed by the United States alone, and one guaranteed by many commercial powers. To the former policy there are two very serious objections. The first is this: A guaranty of neutrality by a single state in the nature of things cannot be effective. You may protect in case of attack, but you cannot neutralize. The guaranty of the neutrality of a state is a guaranty that it shall not be a combatant in war, nor be affected by its operations. As against the guarantor this is good; as against all third powers it is worthless. For how can one state prevent another from the exercise of its sovereignty, of which the right to make war is an important feature? In Wharton's "Digest of the International Law of the United States" this view is clearly presented (last paragraph, § 145): "Neutralization is the assignment to a particular territory or territorial water of such a quality of permanent neutrality in respect to all future wars as will protect it from foreign belligerent disturbance. This quality can only be impressed by the action of the great powers by whom civilized wars are waged and by whose joint interposition such wars could be averted. As the neutrality of the isthmus is by the convention before us [with New Granada, 1846] guar anteed only by the United States, it is not a neutralization in the above sense, but only a pledge and guaranty of protection." And again and more specifically, the United States do not possess, and could not raise for a considerable time, ships and men enough to make their sole guaranty of the neutrality of a Central American state or of the waters of a Central American canal good against all assailants. It is easy to say that the power of this great country is illimitable. That may be true. But to translate this power into ironclads requires a change of national policy, years of time, and unlimited expenditure. There is, then, both a legal and a practical difficulty-though both, in truth, are practical-in the way of a guaranty of the neutrality of a canal by the United States singly. But let all commercial powers act in unison, and see how simple the thing may become. Protection becomes effective, and the canal status fixed, because each power for itself unites in the protection, lays down the status, and renounces the right to injure. "Neutralization" becomes actual and practical because each power, in the exercise of its sovereignty, promises to respect the neutrality. The empty phrase becomes a fact. The argument, then, thus far is this: We find in the history of the Suez Canal a powerful precedent for the policy of general rather than single-handed canal protection. We find in our own treaties and diplomacy a uniform desire to keep an interoceanic canal free from all the operations of war, sometimes inclining to the rôle of sole protector, more often desirous that this responsibility shall be assumed by all commercial states. We find that "neutralization" is incapable of being effected by the act of a single protecting power; that "protection" demands superior force at command to be adequate. We should now be in position to consider the second part of our question, which is this: In order to exempt a proposed Nicaragua or other interoceanic canal from the dangers and operations of war, is it better for the self-interest of the United States that this should be attained by a general or a sole guaranty? This question is considered in the next chapter. |