THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY.
MR. FRELINGHITYSEN'S handling of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is more moderate in form than Mr. Blaine's, but the conclusion at which he arrives does not greatly differ from that reached by his predecessor. Mr. Frelinghuysen labours to show that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty is no longer in force, because the purpose for which it was concluded was never carried out. Mr. Blaine preferred to rest his case exclusively on the change in the circumstances of the United States since the Treaty was entered into. But Mr. Frelinghuysen has this change of circumstances quite as much in his mind as Mr. Blaine had ; the only difference is that he does not put it forward more than is necessary for his purpose. Mr. Blaine's argument went to show that the fact that the United States are now much richer and more powerful than they were in 1850, would of itself be a reason for considering the Treaty as non-existent. Mr. Frelinghuysen is content to plead that this fact is a sufficient reason for not attempting to revive the Treaty, now that it has for other rea- sons fallen into abeyance. In 1850 the United States Go- vernment wanted a certain canal made from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They had not the means wherewith to make it themselves, for "though rich in land and industry," they "were poor in money and floating capital." They went, therefore, to England, and offered to abandon their exclusive rights over the proposed canal, "in order that no time should be unnecessarily lost in commencing and constructing" it. As a matter of fact, the canal was never begun, and the concession came to an end. Now it is proposed to make a different canal in a different part of the isthmus, and under different con- ditions of construction and management. What is the position of the United States Government towards this new under- taking?
The English contention, as we understand it, is quite simple. 'You have made,' we say to the United States, 'a general treaty, in which was included a particular proviso. The con- ditions to which this proviso is applicable have never come into existence ; consequently, the duties you undertook in regard to them have never become binding on you. But the wider obligations into which you voluntarily entered are as much in force as ever. They relate not to what the United States Government is to do in reference to the particular canal contemplated in 1850, but to what the United States Govern- ment is to do in reference to the trade between the two oceans. When the Panama Canal is made, the duties devolving upon you under the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty will revive. There will be a canal connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific, and though it will not be the precise canal which you had in mind when you concluded the Treaty, it will be; for all practical pur- poses,identical with it.' The United States Government is not disposed to admit this. "The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty," says Mr. Frelinghuysen, "was concluded in order to secure a thing which did not exist, and which now never can exist." There is no question here about a revival of duties. The United States took upon themselves no obligations with re- gard to the isthmus, or to the trade between the two oceans. They had nothing in their mind but the canal which was never begun. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty cannot even be said to have expired ; it never came properly into being. To this the rejoinder of the English Government will probably be that, like private persons, nations are bound by what they have said, not by what they discover years afterwards that they meant to say. It is extremely likely that if the United States had been in 1850 what they are in 1882, they would never have con- cluded the Clay ton-Bulwer Treaty. But in this they only share the common lot of persons who make contracts when they are poor which they Would like to avoid when they become rich. The necessity of standing by the bargain is an unpleasant necessity, but much as he may dislike it, an honest man will not seek to escape from it, and an honest State will tabe the same view. The United States gave certain pledges as to what they would do to secure freedom of trade if a canal- were made across the Isthmus, and they have no right to withdraw from those pledges because, now that such a canal seems on the eve of being constructed, they find that if they had to give the pledges over again, they would frame them more to their own advantage. All that they can honourably do is to ask the Powers interested in the freedom of the canal to review the question' on the chance that some new arrangement may be entered into which will suit the European Powers as well as the present one, and please the United States better.
Mr. Frelinghuysen bluntly declines this suggestion. "The President is constrained to say that the United States cannot -take part in extending such an invitation, and to state with entire frankness that the United States would look with dis- favour upon any attempt at a concert of political action by the other Powers in that direction." This refusal does not excite in us any regret. We have never doubted
• that the Monroe doctrine would be maintained in words by the United States Government, though it may or may not find it convenient to assert it in action. We see no reason, therefore, to suppose that such a Conference as that suggested by Lord Granville would have resulted in the conclusion of a really satisfactory treaty. The European Powers and the United States have a diametrically opposite interest in the matter. The European Powers are anxious that a channel of such vast importance to the trade of Europe as the Panama Canal must be, shall be under the control of a State too weak to have a foreign policy of its own. The United States are • anxious that this channel shall be under their own control, and they intend to use the Monroe doctrine as a means of bringing this about. The two views might be argued about for ever, and yet the advocates on each side be no nearer an agreement. This is not a controversy which it is of any avail to keep simmering. It would be much better to give the Government of the United States plain notice that whenever the need for securing the interests of the European Powers in the trade of the Isthmus becomes im- perative, those Powers will take such measures as may at the time seem expedient for placing these interests beyond the reach of attack, and then leave the issue to be determined as and when it shall arise. There are some things which go best without saying ; and when one Power means, if it can, to do what another Power means, if it can, to prevent, any argument between them will, for the most part, only make their mutual relations more unfriendly than they need have been without it. If Mr. Frelinghuysen is politely told that her Majesty's Govern- ment does not accept his view of the obligations of the United States under the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, the question, as it seems to us, may well be allowed to drop.
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