days before, was not presented to the convention and adopted by that body until after the candidates had been selected. It is within the memory of the members of the committee that we pursued this course on the advice of the then leader of our party, who declared that he did not want any contest or issue between the candidates and the platform.

Mr. President, it is useless to pretend that we are dealing with an economic question. The request to repeal was not based upon that ground. Disguise it as you will, the controversy rests upon international grounds. It has been charged that Congress and President Taft are guilty of a breach of faith. As a nation we are charged with breaking our word. Enact the repeal and you confess an act of deliberate national dishonor, because the act of 1912 was passed and President Taft approved it after the protest of Great Britain. If we were wrong in 1912 we should confess our shame and make restitution, but that we were right is established by the great weight of legal authority, and the judgment of the Nation. And believing we were right the confession implied in the proposed repeal would expose us to the shame and reproach of the world. The canal was built for military and commercial purposes, and if we now surrender our sovereignty over its waters we may not be able to sustain our military rights in the future without a struggle. And the day may not be far distant when our necessities will compel us to declare to the world that our control of our own canal cannot be challenged by any power.

No Senator questions the patriotism and high purposes of the President, but if legislation is to be made dependent upon his will alone, no one can predict the mischief to which such a precedent will expose this Government in future years. The welfare of one hundred

millions of freemen cannot be dependent upon the judgment of one man. For the making of the laws of the Nation Congress is responsible, and this responsibility cannot be evaded. The fathers of the Republic wisely placed a limitation on the power of the Executive, and these limitations cannot be disregarded without doing violence to the Constitution which we have all solemnly sworn to uphold.

SPEECH OF HON. ELIHU ROOT.

Mr. ROOT. Mr. President, some time ago I taxed the patience of the Senate by rather extended remarks upon the duty of the United States in regard to tolls upon the Panama Canal; and what I have to say now upon that subject is rather in the way of reply to arguments which have been made, views which have been expressed, and opinions which have been made manifest by various Senators in the course of the long debate which has intervened.

I wish, before proceeding, to express my very great satisfaction with the character of the debate in this Chamber upon this subject. The excitement and fervor of a false patriotism, the insolence and rancor which ill befit the consideration of a serious international subject by a great people, but which have been injected into the popular discussion of this question in some quarters, have found but little response among the members of the Senate of the United States. The question which is before us has been debated with a sense of responsibility and dignity. Senators have argued the question as lawyers and legislators upon its merits. I address myself to a reply to some of the arguments which have been made with a sense of serene satisfaction in dealing with a question which rests in the minds of my col

leagues upon considerations of right reason and just regard for national obligations and national rights.

Let me try, sir, to state the question; and to state the question I must state the situation as it is presented. The bill which is before the Senate proposes to repeal certain clauses of the Panama Canal act passed August 24, 1912. The act was designed to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection, and operation of the canal, and it conferred authority upon the President in respect of establishing tolls for the use of the canal and imposed certain limitations upon him. Section 5 of the act authorized the President to prescribe and from time to time change the tolls; it provided "that no tolls, when prescribed as above, shall be changed" without six month's notice; it provided that no tolls shall be levied upon vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United States. *

*

The President has issued a proclamation imposing tolls of $1.20 per net registered ton upon vessels loaded, a smaller amount upon vessels in ballast, and no tolls upon vessels engaged in American coastwise trade. A question has been raised by Great Britain as to the conformity of that action with a treaty made between the United States and Great Britain in 1901, known as the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. It is claimed that that treaty requires that there shall be no discrimination between the tolls imposed upon foreign vessels and the tolls imposed upon vessels owned by citizens of the United States.

The first thing which we naturally do when such a question is presented is to inquire: What is our title? What are the rights that we have?

Until very recently the Isthmus of Panama was not the property of the United States, and we had no rights there except certain rights derived from an old

treaty with New Granada, made in 1846, by which New Granada gave to the United States certain privileges in any lines of communication which might be constructed, either railroad or canal, but gave the United States no right to construct a canal and no property rights whatever.

How did we get the canal upon which we are proposing to exact tolls? It was under a treaty made with the Republic of Panama, sometimes called the Hay-BunauVarilla treaty. It was signed at Washington on the 18th of November, 1903. Under that treaty with Panama, the owner of the Isthmus, by article 2

granted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a zone of land and land under water, for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of said canal, of the width of 10 miles

And so forth.

By article 3 it granted to the United States all the rights, power, and authority which the United States would possess and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory, to the exclusion of Panama.

In article 18 it provided that

The canal, when constructed, and the entrances thereto, shall be neutral in perpetuity and shall be opened upon the terms provided for by section 1 of article 3 of, and in conformity with all the stipulations of, the treaty entered into by the Governments of the United States and Great Britain on November 18, 1901.

That treaty with Panama is the basis of our rights. That treaty lies at the foundation of any question that can be raised as to what we do with the canal which we are constructing, because it is by that treaty, and by that treaty alone, that we get our title. By that treaty the grant of property and jurisdiction upon which we have proceeded, upon which we hold the canal, is subject to the provision that the canal, when constructed, and the entrances thereto, shall be neutral in perpetuity,

and shall be opened upon the terms provided for by the treaty between the United States and Great Britain of November 18, 1901.

So the treaty with Great Britain which is referred to here is carried into our title as a limitation upon it.

Let us turn to the treaty with Great Britain which is referred to by Panama in this grant. That treaty was signed at Washington November 18, 1901. It recites that a convention was considered expedient by the United States and Great Britain

to facilitate the construction of a ship canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by whatever route may be considered expedient, and to that end to remove any objection which may arise out of the convention of the 19th of April, 1850, commonly called the ClaytonBulwer treaty without impairing the "general principle" of neutralization established in article 8 of that convention.

It proceeds to say:

The canal may be constructed under the auspices of the Government of the United States, either directly at its own cost, or by gift or loan of money to individuals or corporations, or through subscription to or purchase of stock or shares, and that, subject to the provisions of the present treaty, the said Government shall have and enjoy all the rights incident to such construction, as well as the exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the canal.

It then proceeds with article 3:

The United States adopts as the basis of the neutralization of such ship canal the following rules, substantially as embodied in the convention of Constantinople, signed the 28th October, 1888, for the free navigation of the Suez Canal; that is to say:

1 The canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these rules on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable.

Rule 1, which I have just read, is the section 1 of article 3 of the treaty with Great Britain which is specified in the eighteenth article of our grant of title from Panama as being especially and peculiarly and signally incumbent upon us to observe. "The canal," says the