In the United States Senate on Tuesday Mr. Root made
an appeal, which was worthy of him, for the strict observance of the spirit of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. The arguments in favour of exempting American coastwise shipping from tolls, he said, exposed Americans to the charge that they were acting as pharisees and hypocrites. Everyone must know what meaning the words of the Treaty were intended to convey. " We cannot," he said, " he false to our obligations without being false to that confidence and that trust which were reposed in us." This is the language of a justly respected and great American. It is the right ground of appeal. British shipping would survive an unfair and unforeseen tax, but the relations of Britain and America would not easily recover from the feeling in Britain that the word of American states- men was no longer to be taken absolutely at its face value. We feel confident that in the end we shall not be compelled to admit the presence of this virus of mistrust; nor will good Americans have to sing a dirge over their honour in the words of the striking verses which we publish elsewhere in a letter from an American correspondent—" The greatest of our greatest is no more : Honour is dead."
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