Engineer Camp of the Nicaragua Railway on the West Side

existence, would have sought their canal, at 2,671,886 tons in 1879, at 4,507,044 in 1887, and at 7,616,904 in 1895. Reviewing the above figures, Mr. G. E. Church, who found the actual traffic of the Suez Canal to be but 52 per cent. of the possible, calculated the probable, as distinguished from the possible, number of ships which would have used the Nicaragua Canal, and thought that in 1880 it would have borne 1,625,000 tons of freight, valued at £32,136,000. Crediting the Nicaragua Canal with every vessel that might by its means have made a saving of distance, 2,818 ships would, in 1880, have passed through it, carrying 2,938,386 tons of cargo. According to an article in the Saturday Review of March 16, 1895, the probable yearly traffic had been estimated as high as 8,122,093 tons, but the writer himself deemed 3,500,000 tons a more likely figure.

Notwithstanding its political importance and its great financial promise, the undertaking progressed but slowly. Against it was on all occasions manifested in Congress and in the press the opposition of the transcontinental railways. The necessity of increasing the navy should the canal be built and placed under our guaranty of neutrality was also powerfully

UNION OF THE AMERICAS

urged. Possible, or, as was alleged, certain complications with foreign powers formed a giant objection with many. A few, perhaps, gave a pro-British interpretation to the ClaytonBulwer Treaty.

Discussion upon the great canal scheme was by no means the sole indication that our relations with our southern neighbors tended to grow closer. In 1884 Congress provided for, and the President appointed, a commission of three to "ascertain the best modes of securing more intimate international and commercial relations between the United States and the several countries of Central and South America." After conferring with leading merchants and manufacturers in this country, and making an extensive tour of Latin America, the Commissioners in 1884-85 recommended an international American conference to promote commercial intercourse and to prepare some plan of arbitration for controversies between the states of the American continents.

ceived it before 1820.

The idea of such a congress was not new. Bolivar conThe threatening Holy Alliance, or Holy League," as John Quincy Adams called it, caused the young Spanish-American republics in 1826 to huddle together in a congress at Panama. President John Quincy Adams and Clay, his Secretary of State, wished our Government to be represented there; but delays by the slave-power, morbidly sensitive in dealing with countries which had emancipated their slaves so early as 1813, made the Administration's efforts abortive. It is worthy of notice that reciprocity, as it is now called, was one of the subjects which President Adams suggested for discussion at this Panama convocation. That congress came to nothing. Vain, also, were Mexico's sedulous efforts in 1831, 1838, 1839 and 1840 to create a congress of Spanish America. When in 1847 Mexico's fears of North American aggression were realized, Bolivia, Chile, Equador, New Granada and Peru met in Lima, allowing other American republics to join them, and going so far as to invite the United States. In 1856, again,

Walker's filibustering frightened Peru, Chile and Equador into signing a treaty of confederation and endeavoring to get other adherents, while anxious conferences were held among SpanishAmerican ministers in Washington. In 1862 Costa Rica, communicating with Colombia, doubtless voiced the prevalent South American impression "that the cessation of the Vandalic filibustering expedition of 1855 and of the following ones till 1860 was due to intervention, although tardily carried into effect, on the part of Europe." This was a curious commentary on the Monroe Doctrine. The despatch added: "If our republics could have the guaranty that they have nothing to fear from the United States of North America, it is indubitable that no other nation could be more useful and favorable to us. Under the shelter of her powerful eagles, under the influence of her wise institutions and under the spur of her astonishing progress our newly born nationalities would receive the impulse which they now need, and would be permitted to march with firm step, without experiencing the troubles and difficulties with which they have had to struggle. . . A new compact might be draughted by which the United States of North America should bind themselves solemnly to respect and cause others to respect the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the sister republics of this continent; not to annex to their territory, either by purchase or by any other means, any part of the territory of the said republics; not to allow filibustering expeditions to be fitted up against the said nations, or to permit the rights of the latter to be in any way abridged or ignored. Resting upon a treaty of this kind, our republics would admit . . the idea of an intimate alliance with the North American people."

In 1864 Peru bade the Spanish nations to another conference, the United States not being invited because, as Peru alleged, "their policy was adverse to all kinds of alliances, and because the natural preponderance which a first-class power, as they are, has to exercise in the deliberations might embarrass

A RAILROAD TO CAPE HORN

the action of the congress.'

In 1880 a congress proposed for the next year to secure the adoption of arbitration on this hemisphere, was prevented by the breaking out of war between Chile and Peru and Bolivia, Mexico, also, about the same time, having trouble with Guatemala. A similar proposition on the part of the United States in 1881, for November, 1882, came to naught, owing to the continuance of the same hostilities. In 1877 and in 1888 occurred congresses of Spanish-American jurists to amend the international law of the South American Continent.

In 1880 there began in the United States a series of steps which in course of time led to the Pan-American Conference of 1889 and 1890. In 1880 Senator David Davis projected the preliminaries for an immense international line of railroads running at the foot of the great mountain chain through Mexico, Central America and South America, with branches to the main Pacific seaports. Bills of the same tenor were subsequently introduced by Senators Morgan, Sherman and others. There were also propositions for special commissioners to visit Central and South America. At the first session of the Forty-eighth Congress a joint resolution was introduced requesting the President to invite the co-operation of American governments in securing the establishment of an American customs-union.

upon a common silver coin equal in value, say, to our gold dollar, or to some other appropriate standard, which, under proper regulations as to coinage, etc., should be current in all the countries of this continent." Renewed efforts in these various directions resulted in adopting the recommendation of the Commission, and a conference was invited. The act authorizing it permitted in it the discussion of measures (1) for the prosperity of the several states, (2) for an American customsunion, (3) for regular and frequent communication, (4) for a uniform system of customs regulations, (5) for a uniform system of weights and measures, patents, copyrights, trade-marks and extradition, (6) for the adoption of a common silver coin, and (7) for arbitration. The programme also allowed some canvass of miscellaneous subjects.

Before the organization of the Conference, the delegates, starting on October 3, 1889, were carried by rail on a trip nearly 6,000 miles long, visiting forty-one cities, from Boston to St. Louis and back, and inspecting the principal iron and steel manufactories of Pennsylvania. Elaborate receptions were accorded them everywhere. In two great factory towns they were greeted by brass bands made up from among the operatives. At one place a natural-gas well was fired for their edification, and its hues made to change by the ingenious injection of chemicals. This well-meant entertainment, besides being such the Spanish-American temperament—a hardship to the delegates, seemed to some of them a piece of ostentatious braggadocio, precisely the assumption of superiority by the United States which they had come prepared to find. Early in the progress, Senor Quintana, of the Argentine delegation, disengaged himself from the other gentlemen and returned to Washington.

A variety of circumstancs helped ruffle the serenity of the proceedings. The difference between our Spanish-American guests and ourselves, in language, in blood, and in ideas of etiquette, caused misunderstandings. An interpreter was