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and controlled by the United States as a government enterprise. The Clayton-Bulwer treaty provided for the construction of a canal in accordance with the first plan; several unsuccessful attempts were made to raise the necessary capital under the second plan; while the third plan was the one under which the gigantic task was actually accomplished.

The comparative merits of the Nicaragua and Panama routes long divided the opinion of experts. American engineers generally favored that through Nicaragua. The length of the Nicaragua route, from Greytown on the Atlantic to Brito on the Pacific by way of the San Juan river and through Lake Nicaragua, is about 170 miles. The elevation of the lake above the sea is about 110 feet. Its western shore is only twelve miles from the Pacific, with an intervening divide 154 feet above the sea. From the southeast corner of the lake flows the San Juan river, 120 miles to the Atlantic, with an average fall of about 10 inches to the mile. The serious objections to this route are: (1) the lack of harbors at the terminals, Brito being a mere indentation on the coast, rendering the construction of immense breakwaters necessary, while at Greytown the San Juan broadens out into a delta that would require extensive dredging; and (2) the enormous rainfall at Greytown, exceeding that known anywhere else on the western continent-nearly 25 feet.

The Panama route from Colon on the Atlantic to Panama on the Pacific is about 50 miles in length, with a natural elevation nearly double that of Nicaragua. There are natural harbors at each end which are capacious and able to accommodate the heaviest

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shipping. The Panama Railroad, built along the line of the proposed canal, in 1850-55, gave this route an additional advantage. There were, however, certain disadvantages: (1) the unhealthfulness of the vicinity, rendering labor scarce and inefficient; (2) the heavy rainfall, 10 to 12 feet at Colon; and (3) the treacherous character of the geologic structure, due to its volcanic origin, through which the cut had to be made. The impossibility of making even approximate estimates of the cost of the work in such a deadly climate and through such an uncertain geologic formation was one of the greatest difficulties to be overcome. The De Lesseps plan provided for an open cut throughout at the sea-level, at an estimated cost of $170,000,000. The work was begun in 1884 and prosecuted until 1888, when the gigantic scheme collapsed, after the company had expended about $300,000,000 and accomplished less than one-third of the work.

Great as the engineering problems of the various canal schemes have been shown to be, the importance to the world's commerce of the object in view would, in all probability, have led to their solution and to the construction of a canal long before the United States undertook the Panama enterprise, had it not been for difficulties of an altogether different character, complications arising out of the question as to the status of the canal in international law. The diplomatic difficulties in the case of an interoceanic canal are very great. It cannot be regarded as a natural strait, like the Dardanelles, the Danish Belts, or the Straits of Magellan, which were for a long time held under exclusive jurisdiction, but are now free to all nations. Nor, on the other hand, could an

isthmian canal be compared to the Kiel canal, which is within the territory of Germany, and which, although open to commerce, was specially designed to meet the needs of the German navy. Such canals as this are built by the capital of the country through which they pass, and are protected and controlled by its government.

No one of the republics to the south of us, through whose territory it was proposed to build a canal, could raise the capital for its construction or insure its protection when completed. No company chartered by one of these governments could have raised the necessary capital without some further guarantee. Hence it was that all companies organized for this purpose had to secure their charters from some more powerful nation, such as the United States or France, and their concessions from one of the Central American states. This rendered necessary a treaty between the state granting the concession or right to construct a canal through its territory and the state chartering the company. The claims of other states to equality of treatment in the use of such a canal constituted another element that had to be considered.

With the establishment of the independence of the Spanish-American republics the question of the construction of a ship canal across the isthmus became a matter of general interest, and it was one of the proposed subjects of discussion at the Congress of American Republics summoned by Bolivar to meet at Panama in 1826. In the instructions to the United States commissioners to that congress, Mr. Clay authorized them to enter into the consideration of that subject, suggesting that the best routes would likely

be found in the territory of Mexico or of the Central Republic. As to the diplomatic status of the canal, he said:

If the work should ever be executed so as to admit of the passage of sea vessels from ocean to ocean, the benefits of it ought not to be exclusively appropriated to any one nation, but should be extended to all parts of the globe upon the payment of a just compensation or reasonable tolls.'

In 1835, and again in 1839, the United States Senate passed resolutions authorizing the President to enter into negotiations with other nations, particularly Central America and New Granada, for the purpose of protecting by treaty either individuals or companies who might undertake to open communication between the two oceans, and of insuring "the free and equal navigation of the canal by all nations." Presidents Jackson and Van Buren both commissioned agents with a view to carrying out these resolutions, but without success.

While a prisoner at Ham in 1845, Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte secured from the government of Nicaragua a concession granting him power to organize a company for the construction of a waterway to be known as "Le Canale Napoléon de Nicaragua." After his escape from Ham, he published in London a pamphlet entitled "The Canal of Nicaragua, or a Project for the Junction of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by means of a Canal." "

2

Although the United States government was a party to endless negotiations in regard to an inter-oceanic canal, there were only three treaties of any practical

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1 Report of International American Conference, Vol. IV (Hist. App.), 143.

* Snow: "Treaties and Topics in American Diplomacy," p. 328.

importance prior to the close of the nineteenth century, by which it acquired rights and assumed obligations on that account. These were (1) the treaty with New Granada (Colombia) of 1846; (2) the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with England of 1850; and (3) the treaty with Nicaragua of 1867. We shall proceed to examine these in detail.

The treaty with New Granada was signed at Bogota, December 12, 1846, and ratified by both governments in 1848. It did not differ materially from the general draft of treaties, except in the thirty-fifth article, which was of a special character and related to the Isthmus of Panama. By this article "the government of New Granada guarantees to the government of the United States that the right-of-way or transit across the Isthmus of Panama, upon any modes of communication that now exist or that may be hereafter constructed, shall be open and free to the government and citizens of the United States," for the transportation of all articles of lawful commerce upon the same terms enjoyed by the citizens of New Granada.

And in order to secure to themselves the tranquil and constant enjoyment of these advantages, and for the favors they have acquired by the 4th, 5th, and 6th articles of this treaty, the United States guarantee positively and efficaciously to New Granada, by the present stipulation, the perfect neutrality of the before-mentioned isthmus, with the view that the free transit from the one to the other sea may not be interrupted or embarrassed in any future time while this treaty exists; and, in consequence, the United States also guarantee, in the same manner, the rights of sovereignty and

Our treaties with Mexico and Honduras, although covering the case of canal constructions, were of no practical importance, as the routes through these countries were not feasible.

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