tion. It is profitable to listen to what the court says about such an ordinance. It spoke in substance as follows:

The wharf at which the appellant landed was long ago "dedicated to the public use." The public who may use it embraces all engaged in trade and commerce upon the public waters of the United States. Such vessels may traverse these waters without let or hindrance from local authority.

It is claimed that the state empowered one of its political agencies to burden commerce with exactions for wharfage which it does not place on the products of the state. The city could no more do this than it could discriminate against traffic of other states in the use of the public streets and highways. Baltimore, if it pleases, may allow the use of its wharves without charges; or it may under state law charge equal fees on all users, provided the charges do not exceed a fair remuneration for the use.

It cannot employ such property "held for public use" to hinder or obstruct commerce in favor of its own state. Such wharfage cannot be considered as compensation for the use of property; it is an expedient to do indirectly what cannot be done by direct tax.

"Cities owning wharves upon public navigable streams, and quasi-public corporations transporting the products of the country cannot discriminate to impede traffic. In exercise of the police power a state may exclude traffic in articles fairly considered to be dangerous to the health, the lives and the property of the people.”

These were the expressed views of the same court that decided Olsen vs. Smith; and there are principles announced which are in a way applicable to the Panama controversy.

court's decision was not placed on this basis. The decision in no way can have any relation to the Panama case.

3. The court may have been influenced by some "classification" theory which is now running to such an extent that our nation may become a government of class citizenship instead of being what the founders really made it a government "acting on the individual” -a constitutional democracy, a republic. Through odious class distinctions our country is day by day being unconsciously led away from its former freedom towards bondage class bondage.

4. Pilot charges are fees due to individuals for personal work and are not government charges in the

sense of tolls for carrying vessels through the canal by -- the United States—through a canal founded on an enor

mous outlay and on intricate international compacts; there is no analogy!

5. Port charges whether pilotage or otherwise are clearly domestic rates for entering a national port; the canal is not a port facility but it is a highway between two oceans and not connected with any port in particular. Instead of being connected with a port, it is of and for the world. It is unique and governed by its own peculiar situation. So the case of Olsen v. Smith as an argument in the Panama case may be brushed aside as another irrelevant argument and inapplicable.

It may be well to call attention to the case of Gryu Baltimore 100 U. S. Rep. 442 as an offset to Olsen v. Smith. The city of Baltimore passed an ordinance to require all vessels landing goods at the public city wharves to pay a certain wharfage rate provided that no wharfage should be paid on the produce of Maryland landed at such wharves. Here was a clear discrimination. It is profitable to listen to what the court says about such an ordinance. It spoke in substance as follows:

The wharf at which the appellant landed was long ago "dedicated to the public use." The public who may use it embraces all engaged in trade and commerce upon the public waters of the United States. Such vessels may traverse these waters without let or hindrance from local authority.

It is claimed that the state empowered one of its political agencies to burden commerce with exactions for wharfage which it does not place on the products of the state. The city could no more do this than it could discriminate against traffic of other states in the use of the public streets and highways. Baltimore, if it pleases, may allow the use of its wharves without charges; or it may under state law charge equal fees on all users, provided the charges do not exceed a fair remuneration for the use.

It cannot employ such property "held for public use” to hinder or obstruct commerce in favor of its own state. Such wharfage cannot be considered as compensation for the use of property; it is an expedient to do indirectly what cannot be done by direct tax.

“Cities owning wharves upon public navigable streams, and quasi-public corporations transporting the products of the country cannot discriminate to impede traffic. In exercise of the police power a state may exclude traffic in articles fairly considered to be dangerous to the health, the lives and the property of the people.”

These were the expressed views of the same court that decided Olsen vs. Smith; and there are principles announced which are in a way applicable to the Panama controversy.

ties *

In Ware vs. Hylton 3 Dallas (before the Supreme Court in 1796) the question arose under the treaty of peace with England as to what debts were reserved in favor of English merchants, (owing by Americans) under the treaty language "that creditors on either side shall meet with no impediment” in the recovery of all bona fide debts, &c. ? The question was: what debts came under the general language "all bona fide debts ?” The court justly held, that "no line could be drawn between creditors, unless found in the treaty. * * * * The indefinite sweeping terms made use of by the par

* exclude the idea of any class of cases having been intended to be excepted." Vattel says: that “it is not permitted to interpret what has no need of interpretation. When an act is conceived in clear terms when the sense is manifest and leads to nothing absurd there can be no reason to refuse the sense which this treaty naturally presents." He further says "to go elsewhere in search of conjecture, to restrain it would be to elude it. Let the brightest light shine on all the parts, let it be expressed in terms most clear and de terminate; all of this shall be of no use if we search for foreign reasons, to maintain what cannot be found in the sense it naturally presents."

The court further states, that rights under the treaty must be "mutual." If Americans can collect their debts against Englishmen the rule must operate vice versa. That the rule in such cases "should work both ways." This case thoroughly demonstrates the

. correct rule for construing mutual treaty compacts, and cannot be made clearer by any subsequent adjudications. Mutual contracts must be mutually and reciprocally binding and so construed, otherwise gross wrong and injustice would be the result.

In Meigs vs. McClung 9 Cranch, Chief Justice Mar

shall says: “The treaty is the contract of both parties; each having lands. The words are the words of both parties.”

The court in Green vs. Biddle 8 Wheaton says, in construing a treaty, “that where the words of a law treaty or contract have a plain and obvious meaning, all construction in hostility with such meaning is excluded. This is a maxim of law and a dictate of common sense.'

One able lawyer in the canal controversy held that if a nation attempted to part with its jurisdictional or property rights by treaty grant, every presumption would be against the intent of the state to so part with the same. The reply to this would be that if a state, for a consideration paid, makes a grant to a sovereign state “the grant will be taken most strongly against the grantor." If a state attempts to grant any sovereign right or jurisdiction to one of its own citizens or subjects the grant is usually held to be void, because a ruling nation cannot place itself under the governmental power of the subject. The sovereign must remain sovereign over the citizen. But the rule and universal practice among nations is that a grant may he made of any right by one sovereign to another, and the usual mode of transfer is by treaty.

The granting nation is bound most strongly by the words of the treaty because it was within its power to limit the grant and not mislead the grantee to its injury. Of course the first rule is, to strive to define the treaty by a fair construction of the words used; if doubt arises all doubts shall be construed in favor of the grantee. The grantor will not be permitted to abridge or narrow the terms of his contract.

This is clearly demonstrated in Hauenstein vs. Lynham 100 U. S. Rep. In this case the United States had