One of the most curious advertisements we can remember to
have seen appeared in some papers of last Saturday, when a whole page was occupied by the text of the new Treaty between Colombia and the United States. The Treaty was signed on April 6th, 1914. One clause expresses the "sincere regret" of the United States Government and people that anything should have happened to interrupt the former friendship of the two countries. Other clauses provide for the remission of tolls and taxes on Colombian commerce in the Panama Canal zone. Another promises the payment of £5,000,000 by the United States to Colombia. Finally, Colombia agrees to recognize Panama as an independent nation. All this means, of course, that the treatment of Colombia at the time of the revolution in Panama (when Panama was hurriedly recognized by the United States as independent and Colombian authority there was overridden) is admitted by the present Government of the United States to have been unfair. Mr. Roosevelt always hotly defended the action of the United States as perfectly honourable as well as absolutely necessary. The extent of Mr. Wilson's dissent from that view can be measured by the offer of an apology and the payment of such a large sum in "hush-money."
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