The action of the United States Senate during the past
week has been anything bat calculated to raise that body in the opinion of serious people. It has not only treated a diplo- matic instrument of great importance in itself, and prepared by one of the ablest and most patriotic of American states- men, as if it were the work of the merest ignoramus in foreign affairs, but it has tolerated a levity and recklessness of tone in regard to solemn treaty obligations which shows that the Senate as a body is losing its sense of the high responsi- bilities with which it is entrusted under the Constitution. As our readers know, we do not in the least dread the Americani- sation of the Nicaragua Canal, but that cannot blind us to the way in which the whole question has been handled in the Senate. The object apparently has been not to attain a particular object so much as to insult a friendly Power and make it difficult for her to negotiate in a conciliatory spirit. The bare facts of the situation are as follows. At the end of last week the Senate adopted the Davis amendment of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, by which the stipulations of that Treaty are not to apply to such measures as the United States may find neces- sary for securing by its own forces the proper defence of the canal and the maintenance of public order. On Thursday the Foraker amendments were agreed to. One of these declares the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty superseded. The other strikes out the clauses requiring the adherence of other Powers. After these amendments had been passed the Senate ratified the Treaty by 55 votes to 18,—the majority being larger by 5 votes than the necessary two-thirds.
