CHAPTER XIV. The Open Door
The United States arrived in the Orient at a moment of high excitement. Russia was consolidating the advance of two centuries by the building of the trans-Siberian railroad, and was looking eagerly for a port in the sun, to supplement winter-bound Vladivostok. Great Britain still regarded Russia as the great enemy and, pursuing her policy of placing buffer states between her territories and her enemies, was keenly interested in preventing any encroachment southward which might bring the Russian bear nearer India. France, Russia"s ally, possessed IndoChina, which was growing at the expense of Siam and which might grow northwards into China. Germany saw in eastern Asia the richest prize remaining in the world not yet possessed by her rivals, and it was for this that she was seeking power in the Pacific. Having missed the Philippines, she quickly secured Samoa and purchased from Spain the Caroline Islands, east of the Philippines, and all that the United States had not taken of Spain"s empire in the Pacific.
These latent rivalries had been brought into the open by the Chino-j.a.panese War of 1894-1895, which showed the powerlessness of China. The western world was, indeed, divided in opinion as to whether this colossus of the East was essentially rotten, old, decrepit, and ready to disintegrate, or was merely weak because of arrested development, which education and training could correct. At any rate, China was regarded as sick and therefore became for the moment even more interesting than Turkey, the traditional sick man of Europe. If China were to die, her estate would be divided. If she were really to revitalize her vast bulk by adapting her millions to modern ways, she had but to stretch herself and the toilfully acquired Asiatic possessions of the European powers would shiver to pieces; and if she awoke angry, Europe herself might well tremble. The really wise saw that the important thing was to determine the kind of education which China should receive, and in solving this problem the palm of wisdom must be given to the missionaries who represented the great Christian societies of Europe and America. To small-minded statesmen it seemed that the situation called for conquest. No nation was willing to be late at the division, if division it was to be; while if China was to awake, the European powers felt that she should awake shackled. By no one was this latter view so clearly held as by the Kaiser. With his accustomed versatility, he designed a cartoon showing the European powers, armed and with Germania in the forefront, confronting the yellow peril. On sending his troops to China in 1900, he told them to imitate the methods of the Huns, in order to strike lasting terror to the hearts of the yellow race. By such means he sought to direct attention to the menace of the Barbarian, when he was himself first stating that doctrine of Teutonic frightfulness which has proved, in our day at least, to be the real world peril.
It was j.a.pan who had exposed the weakness of the giant, but her victory had been so easy that her own strength was as yet untested. j.a.pan had come of age in 1894 when, following the example of Great Britain, the various powers had released her from the obligation of exterritoriality imposed upon her by treaties when their subjects were unwilling to trust themselves to her courts. It was still uncertain, however, whether the a.s.sumption of European methods by j.a.pan was real, and her position as a great power was not yet established. In the very moment of her triumph over China she was forced to submit to the humiliation of having the terms of peace supervised by a concert of powers and of having many of the spoils of her victory torn from her.
The chief fruits that remained to j.a.pan from her brilliant military victory were Formosa and the recognition of the separation of Korea from China: These acquisitions gave her an opportunity to show her capacity for real expansion, but whether she would be able to hold her prize was yet to be proven. The European states, however, claimed that by the j.a.panese victories the balance of power in the Orient had been upset and that it must be adjusted. The obvious method was for each power to demand something for itself. In 1898 Germany secured a lease of Kiao-chau Bay across the Yellow Sea from Korea, which she at once fortified and where she proceeded to develop a port with the hope of commanding the trade of all that part of China. Russia in the same way secured, somewhat farther to the north, Port Arthur and Talien-wan, and proceeded to build Dalny as the commercial outlet of her growing railroad. Great Britain immediately occupied Wei-hai-wei, which was midway between the German and Russian bases and commanded from the south the entrance to Pekin, and also, much farther to the south, Mirs Bay, which gave security to her commercial center at Hong-kong. France took Kw.a.n.g-chau, still farther to the south, and Italy received Sanmen, somewhat to the south of the Yangtszekiang. From these ports each power hoped to extend a sphere of influence. It was axiomatic that such a sphere would be most rapidly developed and most solidly held if special tariff regulations were devised to throw the trade into the hands of the merchants of the nation holding the port. The next step, therefore, in establishing the solidity of an Asiatic base, would be the formulation of special tariffs. The result would be the practical division of China into districts having different and opposed commercial interests.
The United States did not arrive in this energetic company as an entire stranger. With both China and j.a.pan her relations had long been intimate and friendly. American merchants had traded ginseng and furs for China silks and teas ever since the United States had been a nation. In 1786 the Government had appointed a commercial agent at Canton and in 1844 had made one of the first commercial treaties with China. In 1854 the United States had been the point of the foreign wedge that opened j.a.pan to western civilization and inaugurated that amazing period of national reorganization and a.s.similation which has given the j.a.panese Empire her place in they world today. American missionaries had labored long and disinterestedly for the moral regeneration of both China and j.a.pan with results which are now universally recognized as beneficial, though in 1900 there was still among the Chinese much of that friction which is the inevitable reaction from an attempt to change the fundamentals of an ancient faith and long-standing habits. American merchants, it is true, had been of all cla.s.ses, but at any rate there had always been a sufficient leaven of those of the highest type to insure a reasonable reputation.
The conduct of the American Government in the Far East had been most honorable and friendly. The treaty with j.a.pan in 1858 contained the clause: "The President of the United States, at the request of the j.a.panese Government, will act as a friendly mediator in such matters of difference as may arise between the Government of j.a.pan and any European power." Under Seward the United States did, indeed, work in concert with European powers to force the opening of the Shimonoseki Straits in 1864, and a revision of the tariff in 1866. Subsequently, however, the United States cooperated with j.a.pan in her effort to free herself from certain disadvantageous features of early treaties. In 1883 the United States returned the indemnity received at the time of the Shimonoseki affair-an example of international equity almost unique at the time but subsequently paralleled in American relations with China. The one serious difficulty existing in the relationships of the United States with both China and j.a.pan resulted from an unwillingness to receive their natives as immigrants when people of nearly every other country were admitted. The American att.i.tude had already been expressed in the Chinese Exclusion Act. As yet the chief difficulty was with that nation, but it was inevitable that such distinctions would prove particularly galling to the rising spirit of the j.a.panese.
John Hay was keenly aware of the possibilities involved in these Far Eastern events. Of profound moment under any circ.u.mstances, they were doubly so now that the United States was territorially involved. To take a slice of this Eastern area was a course quite open to the United States and one which some of the powers at least would have welcomed. Hay, however, wrote to Paul Dana on March 16, 1899, as follows: "We are, of course, opposed to the dismemberment of that empire [China], and we do not think that the public opinion of the United States would justify this Government in taking part in the great game of spoliation now going on." He felt also that the United States should not tie its hands by "formal alliances with other Powers interested," nor was he prepared "to a.s.sure China that we would join her in repelling that demand by armed force."
It remained, then, for the Secretary of State to find a lever for peaceful interference on the part of his country and a plan for future operations. The first he found in the commercial interest of the United States. Since the Government refrained from pressing for special favors in any single part of the Chinese Empire, it could demand that American interests be not infringed anywhere. The Secretary of State realized that in a democracy statesmen cannot overlook the necessity of condensing their policies into popular catchwords or slogans. Today such phrases represent in large measure the power referred to in the old saying: "Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws." The single phrase, "sc.r.a.p of paper," probably cost Germany more than any one of her atrocious deeds in the Great War. Hay"s policy with regard to China had the advantage of two such phrases. The "golden rule," however, proved less lasting than the "open door," which was coined apparently in the instructions to the Paris Peace Commission. This phrase expressed just what the United States meant. The precise plan of the American Government was outlined and its execution undertaken in a circular note of September 6, 1899, which the Secretary of State addressed to London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. In this he asked the powers to agree to respect all existing open ports and established interests within their respective spheres, to enforce the Chinese tariff and no other, and to refrain from all discrimination in port and railroad charges. To make such a proposal to the European powers required courage. In its essential elements the situation in the Far East was not unlike the internal economic condition prevailing at the same time in the United States. In this country great transportation monopolies had been built up, having an enormous capitalization, and many of them were dependent for their profits on the advantage of price fixing that monopoly may be expected to bring. Then state and nation stepped in and a.s.serted their right to fix prices in the interest of the consumer. The consequent political struggles ill.u.s.trate the difficulties besetting the Secretary of State in his somewhat similar attempt to take the chief fruits from the powers which had just acquired Chinese territory-an undertaking in which he had none of the support of legal powers effective in the United States.
That Hay so promptly succeeded in putting at least a toe in the door which he wished to open was due to a number of circ.u.mstances. Great Britain, devoted to the principle of free trade, heartily approved of his proposal and at once accepted its terms. The other powers expressed their sympathy with the ideas of the note, but, in the case of Russia at least, without the faintest intention of paying any heed to it. Hay promptly notified each power of the others" approval and stated that, with this unanimous consent, he would regard its acceptance of the proposals as "final and definitive."
The force which Hay had used was the moral influence of world opinion. None of the powers dared, with its hands fresh filled with Chinese plunder, openly to a.s.sert that it had taken the spoils for selfish reasons alone-at least, after another power had denied such purpose. Hay saw and capitalized the force of conventional morality which, however superficial in many cases, had influenced the European powers, particularly since the time of the Holy Alliance. Accustomed to clothe their actions in the garb of humanitarianism, they were not, when caught thus red-handed, prepared to be a mark of scorn for the rest of the world. The cult of unabashed might was still a closet philosophy which even Germany, its chief devotee, was not yet ready to avow to the world. Of course Hay knew that the battle was not won, for the bandits still held the booty. He was too wise to attempt to wrench it from them, for that indeed would have meant battle for which the United States was not prepared in military strength or popular intention. He had merely pledged these countries to use their acquisitions for the general good. Though the promises meant little in themselves, to have exacted them was an initial step toward victory.
In the meantime the penetration of foreign influences into China was producing a reaction. A wave of protest against the "foreign devils" swept through the population and acquired intensity from the acts of fanatic religious leaders. That strange character, the Dowager Empress, yielded to the "Boxers," who obtained possession of Pekin, cut off the foreigners from the outside world, and besieged them in the legations. That some such movement was inevitable must have been apparent to many European statesmen, and that it would give them occasion, by interference and punishment, to solidify their "spheres of influence" must have occurred to them. The "open door" was in as immediate peril as were the diplomats in Pekin.
Secretary Hay did not, however, yield to these altered circ.u.mstances. Instead, he built upon the leadership which he had a.s.sumed. He promptly accepted the international responsibility which the emergency called for. The United States at once agreed to take its share, in cooperation with the Great Powers, in whatever measures should be judged necessary. The first obvious measure was to relieve the foreign ministers who were besieged in Pekin. American a.s.sistance was active and immediate. By the efforts of the American Government, communication with the legations was opened; the American naval forces were soon at Tientsin, the port of Pekin; and five or six thousand troops were hastily sent from the Philippines. The United States therefore bore its full proportion of the task. The largest contingent of the land forces was, indeed, from Germany, and the command of the whole undertaking was by agreement given to the German commander, Graf von Waldersee. Owing, however, to his remoteness from the scene of action, he did not arrive until after Pekin had been reached and the relief of the legations, which was the first if not the main object of the expedition, had been accomplished. After this, the resistance of the Chinese greatly decreased and the country was practically at the mercy of the concert of powers.
By thus bearing its share in the responsibilities of the situation, the United States had won a vote in determining the result. Secretary Hay, however, had not waited for the military outcome, and he aimed not at a vote in the concert of powers but at its leadership. While the international expedition was gathering its forces, he announced in a circular note that "the policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative ent.i.ty, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire." To this position he requested the powers to a.s.sent.
Again Hay had hit upon a formula which no self-respecting power could deny. Receiving from practically all a statement of their purpose to preserve the "integrity" of China and the "Open Door" just when they were launching the greatest military movement ever undertaken in the Far East by the western world, he made it impossible to turn punishment into destruction and part.i.tion. The legations were saved and so was China. After complicated negotiations an agreement was reached which exacted heavy pecuniary penalties, and in the case of Germany, whose minister had been a.s.sa.s.sinated, a conspicuous and what was intended to be an enduring record of the crime and its punishment. China, however, remained a nation-with its door open.
Once more in 1904 the fate of China, and in fact that of the whole Far East, was thrown into the ring. j.a.pan and Russia entered into a war which had practically no cause except the collision of their advancing interests in Chinese territory. Every land battle of the war, except those of the Saghalien campaign, was fought in China, Chinese ports were blockaded, Chinese waters were filled with enemy mines and torpedoes, and the prize was Chinese territory or territory recently taken from her. To deny these facts was impossible; to admit them seemed to involve the disintegration of the empire. Here again Secretary Hay, devising a middle course, gained by his promptness of action the prestige of having been the first to speak. On February 8, 1904, he asked Germany, Great Britain, and France to join with the United States in requesting j.a.pan and Russia to recognize the neutrality of China, and to localize hostilities within fixed limits. On January 10, 1905, remembering how the victory of j.a.pan in 1894 had brought compensatory grants to all the powers, he sent out a circular note expressing the hope on the part of the American Government that the war would not result in any "concession of Chinese territory to neutral powers." Accustomed now to these invitations which decency forbade them to refuse, all the powers a.s.sented to this suggestion. The results of the war, therefore, were confined to Manchuria, and j.a.pan promised that her occupation of that province should be temporary and that commercial opportunity therein should be the same for all. The culmination of American prestige came with President Roosevelt"s offer of the good offices of the United States, on June 8, 1905. As a result, peace negotiations were concluded in the Treaty of Portsmouth (New Hampshire) in 1905. For this conspicuous service to the cause of peace President Roosevelt was awarded the n.o.bel prize.
Secretary Hay had therefore, in the seven years following the real arrival of the United States in the Far East, evolved a policy which was clear and definite, and one which appealed to the American people. While it const.i.tuted a variation from the precise methods laid down by President Monroe in 1823, in that it involved concerted and equal cooperation with the great powers of the world, Hay"s policy rested upon the same fundamental bases: a belief in the fundamental right of nations to determine their own government, and the reduction to a minimum of intervention by foreign powers. To have refused to recognize intervention at all would have been, under the circ.u.mstances, to abandon China to her fate. In protecting its own right to trade with her, the United States protected the integrity of China. Hay had, moreover, so ably conducted the actual negotiations that the United States enjoyed for the moment the leadership in the concert of powers and exercised an authority more in accord with her potential than with her actual strength. Secretary Hay"s death in 1905 brought American leadership to an end, for, though his policies continued to be avowed by all concerned, their application was thereafter restricted. The integrity of Chinese territory was threatened, though not actually violated, by the action of Great Britain in Tibet and of j.a.pan in Manchuria. j.a.pan, recognized as a major power since her war with Russia, seemed in the opinion of many to leave but a crack of the door open in Manchuria, and her relationship with the United States grew difficult as she resented more and more certain discriminations against her citizens which she professed to find in the laws of some of the American States, particularly in those of California.
In 1908 Elihu Root, who succeeded Hay as Secretary of State, effected an understanding with j.a.pan. Adopting a method which has become rather habitual in the relationship between the United States and j.a.pan, Root and the j.a.panese amba.s.sador exchanged notes. In these they both pointed out that their object was the peaceful development of their commerce in the Pacific; that "the policy of both governments, uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies, is directed to the maintenance of the existing status quo in the region above mentioned, and to the defense of the principle of equal opportunity for commerce and industry in China"; that they both stood for the independence and integrity of China; and that, should any event threaten the stability of existing conditions, "it remained for the two governments to communicate with each other in order to arrive at an understanding as to what measures they may consider it useful to take."
The immigration problem between j.a.pan and the United States was even more serious than that of the open door and the integrity of China. The teeming population of j.a.pan was swarming beyond her island empire, and Korea and Manchuria did not seem to offer sufficient opportunity. The number of j.a.panese immigrants to this country, which before the Spanish War had never reached 2000 in any one year, now rose rapidly until in 1907 it reached 30,226. American sentiment, which had been favorable to j.a.pan during her war with Russia, began to change. The public and particularly the laboring cla.s.ses in the West, where most of the j.a.panese remained, objected to this increasing immigration, while a number of leaders of American opinion devoted themselves to converting the public to a belief that the military ambitions of j.a.pan included the Philippines and possibly Hawaii, where the j.a.panese were a formidable element in the population. As a consequence there arose a strong demand that the principles of the Chinese Exclusion Act be applied to the j.a.panese. The situation was made more definite by the fact that the board of education in San Francisco ruled in 1906 that orientals should receive instruction in special schools. The j.a.panese promptly protested, and their demand for their rights under the treaty of 1894 was supported by the Tokio Government. The international consequences of thus discriminating against the natives of so rising and self-confident a country as j.a.pan, and one conscious of its military strength, were bound to be very different from the difficulties encountered in the case of China. The United States confronted a serious situation, but fortunately did not confront it alone. Australia and British Columbia, similarly threatened by j.a.panese immigration, were equally opposed to it.
Out of deference to Great Britain, with which she had been allied since 1902, j.a.pan consented that her immigrants should not force their way into unwilling communities. This position facilitated an arrangement between the United States and j.a.pan, and an informal agreement was made in 1907. The schools of San Francisco were to be open to oriental children not over sixteen years of age, while j.a.pan was to withhold pa.s.sports from laborers who planned to emigrate to the United States. This plan has worked with reasonable success, but minor issues have kept alive in both countries the bad feeling on the subject. Certain States, particularly California, have pa.s.sed laws, especially with regard to the ownership and leasing of farm lands, apparently intended to discriminate against j.a.panese who were already residents. These laws j.a.pan has held to be violations of her treaty provision for consideration on the "most favored nation" basis, and she has felt them to be opposed in spirit to the "gentlemen"s agreement" of 1907. The inability of the Federal Government to control the policy of individual States is not accepted by foreign countries as releasing the United States from international obligations, so that, although friendly agreements between the two countries were reached on the major points, cause for popular irritation still remained.
Philander C. Knox, who succeeded Root as Secretary of State, devoted his attention rather to the fostering of American interests in China than to the development of the general policies of his Department. While he refrained from asking for an American sphere of influence, he insisted that American capitalists obtain their fair share of the concessions for railroad building, mining, and other enterprises which the Chinese Government thought it necessary to give in order to secure capital for her schemes of modernization. As these concessions were supposed to carry political influence in the areas to which they applied, there was active rivalry for them, and Russia and j.a.pan, which had no surplus capital, even borrowed in order to secure a share. This situation led to a tangled web of intrigue, perhaps inevitable but decidedly contrary to the usual American diplomatic habits; and at this game the United States did not prove particularly successful. In 1911 there broke out in China a republican revolution which was speedily successful. The new Government, as yet unrecognized, needed money, and the United States secured a share in a six-power syndicate which was organized to float a national loan. The conditions upon which this syndicate insisted, however, were as much political as they were pecuniary, and the new Government refused to accept them.
On the accession of President Wilson, the United States promptly led the way in recognizing the new republic in China. On March 18, 1913, the President announced: "The conditions of the loan seem to us to touch nearly the administrative independence of China itself; and this administration does not feel that it ought, even by implication, to be a party to those conditions." The former American policy of non-interference was therefore renewed, but it still remained uncertain whether the entrance of the United States into Far Eastern politics would do more than serve to delay the European dominance which seemed to be impending in 1898.
CHAPTER XV. The Panama Ca.n.a.l
While American troops were threading the mountain pa.s.ses and the mora.s.ses of the Philippines, scaling the walls of Pekin, and sunning themselves in the delectable pleasances of the Forbidden City, and while American Secretaries of State were penning dispatches which determined the fate of countries on the opposite side of the globe, the old diplomatic problems nearer home still persisted. The Spanish War, however, had so thoroughly changed the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world that the conditions under which even these old problems were to be adjusted or solved gave them entirely new aspects. The American people gradually but effectually began to take foreign affairs more seriously. As time went on, the Government made improvements in the consular and diplomatic services. Politicians found that their irresponsible threatenings of other countries had ceased to be politically profitable when public opinion realized what was at stake. Other countries, moreover, began to take the United States more seriously. The open hostility which they had shown on the first entrance of this nation into world politics changed, on second thought, to a desire on their part to placate and perhaps to win the support of this new and formidable power.
The att.i.tude of Germany in particular was conspicuous. The Kaiser sent his brother, Prince Henry, to visit the United States. He presented the nation with a statue of Frederick the Great and Harvard with a Germanic museum; he ordered a Herreshoff yacht, and asked the President"s daughter, Alice Roosevelt, to christen it; he established exchange professorships in the universities; and he began a campaign aimed apparently at securing for Germany the support of the entire American people, or, failing that, at organizing for German purposes the German-born element within the United States. France sought to revive the memory of her friendship for the United States during the Revolution by presenting the nation with a statue of Rochambeau, and she also established exchange professorships. In England, Cecil Rhodes, with his great dream of drawing together all portions of the British race, devoted his fortune to making Oxford the mold where all its leaders of thought and action should be shaped; and Joseph Chamberlain and other English leaders talked freely and enthusiastically of an alliance between Great Britain and the United States as the surest foundation for world peace.
It need not be supposed, however, that these international amenities meant that the United States was to be allowed to have its own way in the world. The friendliness of Great Britain was indeed sincere. Engaged between 1899 and 1901 in the Boer War, she appreciated ever more strongly the need for the friendship of the United States, and she looked with cordial approbation upon the development of Secretary Hay"s policy in China. The British, however, like the Americans, are legalistically inclined, and disputes between the two nations are likely to be maintained to the limit of the law. The advantage of this legal mindedness is that there has always been a disposition in both peoples to submit to judicial award when ordinary negotiations have reached a deadlock. But the real affection for each other which underlay the eternal bickerings of the two nations had as yet not revealed itself to the American consciousness. As most of the disputes of the United States had been with Great Britain, Americans were always on the alert to maintain all their claims and were suspicious of "British gold."
It was, therefore, in an atmosphere by no means conducive to yielding on the part of the United States, though it was one not antagonistic to good feeling, that the representatives of the two countries met. John Hay and Sir Julian Pauncefote, whose long quiet service in this country had made him the first popular British amba.s.sador, now set about clearing up the problems confronting the two peoples. The first question which pressed for settlement was one of boundary. It had already taken ninety years to draw the line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and now the purchase of Alaska by the United States had added new uncertainties to the international boundary. The claims of both nations were based on a treaty of 1825 between Great Britain and Russia. Like most attempts to define boundaries running through unexplored territories, the treaty terms admitted of two interpretations. The boundary line from Portland Channel to Mount St. Elias was stipulated to run everywhere a distance of ten marine leagues from the coast and to follow its sinuosities. This particular coast, however, is bitten into by long fiords stretching far into the country. Great Britain held that these were not part of the sea in the sense of the treaty and that the line should cut across them ten marine leagues from the outer coast line. On the other hand, the United States held that the line should be drawn ten marine leagues from the heads of these inlets.
The discovery of gold on the Yukon in 1897 made this boundary question of practical moment. Action now became an immediate necessity. In 1899 the two countries agreed upon a modus Vivendi and in 1903 arranged an arbitration. The arbitrating board consisted of three members from each of the two nations. The United States appointed Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, ex-Senator George Turner, and Elihu Root, then Secretary of War. Great Britain appointed two Canadians, Louis A. Jette and A. B. Aylesworth, and Lord Alverstone, Chief Justice of England. Their decision was in accordance with the principle for which the United States had contended, though not following the actual line which it had sketched. It gave the Americans, however, full control of the coast and its harbors, and the settlement provided a mutually accepted boundary on every frontier.
With the discovery of gold in the far North, Alaska began a period of development which is rapidly making that territory an important economic factor in American life. Today the time when this vast northern coast was valuable only as the breeding ground for the fur seal seems long past. Nevertheless the fur seal continued to be sought, and for years the international difficulty of protecting the fisheries remained. Finally, in 1911, the United States entered into a joint agreement with Great Britain, j.a.pan, and Russia, which is actually serving as a sort of international game law. The problems of Alaska that remain are therefore those of internal development.
Diplomacy, however, is not concerned solely with sensational episodes. American ministers and the State Department are engaged for the most part in the humdrum adjustment of minor differences which never find their way into the newspapers. Probably more such cases arise with Great Britain, in behalf of Canada, than with any other section of the globe. On the American continent rivers flow from one country into the other; railroads carry goods across the border and back again; citizens labor now in one country, now in the other; corporations do business in both. All these ties not only bind but chafe and give rise to constant negotiation. More and more Great Britain has left the handling of such matters to the Canadian authorities, and, while there can be no interchange of ministers, there is an enormous transaction of business between Ottawa and Washington.
While there has of late years been little talk of annexation, there have been many in both countries who have desired to reduce the significance of the boundary to a minimum. This feeling led in 1911 to the formulation of a reciprocity agreement, which Canada, however, was unwilling to accept. Yet, if tariff restrictions were not removed, other international barriers were as far as possible done away with. In 1898 a commission was appointed to agree upon all points of difference. Working slowly but steadily, the commissioners settled one question after another, until practically all problems were put upon a permanent working basis. Perhaps the most interesting of the results of this activity was the appointment in 1908 of a permanent International Fisheries Commission, which still regulates that vexing question.
Another source of international complication arose out of the Atlantic fisheries off Newfoundland, which is not part of Canada. It is off these sh.o.r.es that the most important deep-sea fishing takes place. This fishery was one of the earliest American sources of wealth, and for nearly two centuries formed a sort of keystone of the whole commercial life of the United States. When in 1783 Great Britain recognized American independence, she recognized also that American fishermen had certain rights off these coasts. These rights, however, were not sufficient for the conduct of the fisheries, and so in addition certain "liberties" were granted, which allowed American fishers to land for the purpose of drying fish and of doing other things not generally permitted to foreigners. These concessions in fact amounted to a joint partic.i.p.ation with the British. The rights were permanent, but the privileges were regarded as having lapsed after the War of 1812. In 1818 they were partially renewed, certain limited privileges being conceded. Ever since that date the problem of securing the additional privileges desired has been a subject for discussion between Great Britain and the United States. Between 1854 and 1866 the American Government secured them by reciprocity; between 1872 and 1884 it bought them; after 1888 it enjoyed them by a temporary modus vivendi arranged under President Cleveland.
In 1902 Hay arranged with Sir Robert Bond, Prime Minister of Newfoundland, a new reciprocity agreement. This, however, the Senate rejected, and the Cleveland agreement continued. Newfoundland, angry at the rejection of the proposed treaty, put every obstacle possible in the way of American fishermen and used methods which the Americans claimed to be contrary to the treaty terms. After long continued and rather acrimonious discussions, the matter was finally referred in 1909 to the Hague Court. As in the Bering Sea case, the court was asked not only to judge the facts but also to draw up an agreement for the future. Its decision, on the whole, favored Newfoundland, but this fact is of little moment compared with the likelihood that a dispute almost a century and a half old has at last been permanently settled.
None of these international disputes and settlements to the north, however, excited anything like the popular interest aroused by one which occurred in the south. The Spanish War made it abundantly evident that an isthmian ca.n.a.l between the Atlantic and the Pacific must be built. The arguments of naval strategy which Captain Mahan had long been urging had received striking demonstration in the long and roundabout voyage which the Oregon was obliged to take. The pressure of railroad rates on the trade of the country caused wide commercial support for a project expected to establish a water compet.i.tion that would pull them down. The American people determined to dig a ca.n.a.l.
The first obstacle to such a project lay in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain. That obstacle Blaine had attempted in vain to remove; in fact his bungling diplomacy had riveted it yet more closely by making Great Britain maintain it as a point of honor. To this subject Hay now devoted himself, and as he encountered no serious difficulties, a treaty was drawn up in 1900 practically as he wished it. It was not, however, popular in the United States. Hay preferred and arranged for a ca.n.a.l neutralized by international guarantee, on the same basis as the Suez Ca.n.a.l; but American public sentiment had come to insist on a ca.n.a.l controlled absolutely by the United States. The treaty was therefore rejected by the Senate, or rather was so amended as to prove unacceptable to Great Britain.
Hay believed that he had obtained what was most desirable as well as all that was possible, that the majority of the American people approved, and that he was beaten only because a treaty must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate. He therefore resigned. President McKinley, however, refused to accept his resignation, and he and Lord Pauncefote were soon at work again on the subject. In 1901 a new treaty was presented to the Senate. This began by abrogating the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty entirely and with it brushing away all restrictions upon the activity of the United States in Central America. It specifically permitted the United States to "maintain such military police along the ca.n.a.l as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." By interpreting this clause as allowing complete fortification, the United States has made itself the guardian of the ca.n.a.l. In return for the release from former obligations which Great Britain thus allowed, the United States agreed that any ca.n.a.l constructed should be regulated by certain rules which were stated in the treaty and which made it "free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war of all nations observing these Rules, on terms of entire equality," in time of war as well as of peace. This time the treaty proved satisfactory and was accepted by the Senate. Thus one more source of trouble was done away with, and the first obstacle in the way of the ca.n.a.l was removed.
The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was, however, only a bit of the tangled jungle which must be cleared before the first American shovel could begin its work. For over twenty years a contest had been waged between experts in the United States as to the relative merits of the Panama and the Nicaragua routes. The latter was the more popular, perhaps because it seemed at one time that Panama was preempted by De Lesseps" French company. This contest as to the better route led to the pa.s.sage of a law, in 1902, which authorized the President to acquire the rights and property needed to construct a ca.n.a.l by the Panama route, on condition that he could make satisfactory arrangements "within a reasonable time and upon reasonable terms." Otherwise, Nicaragua was to be chosen. Theodore Roosevelt was now President and, though at one time not favoring Panama, he decided that there the ca.n.a.l should be constructed and with his accustomed vigor set himself to the task.
The first difficulty presented by this route was the prior right which the French company still retained, although it had little, if any, hope of carrying on the construction itself. It possessed not only rights but also much equipment on the spot, and it had actually begun excavation at certain points. The purchase of all its properties complete for $40,000,000 was, therefore, not a bad investment on the part of the Government. By this purchase the United States was brought directly into relation with Colombia, through one of whose federal states, Panama, the ca.n.a.l was to be cut.
While the French purchase had removed one obstacle, the De Lesseps charter alone would not suffice for the construction of the ca.n.a.l, for the American Government had definite ideas as to the conditions necessary for the success of the work. The Government required a zone which should be under its complete control, for not otherwise could satisfactory sanitary regulations be enforced. It insisted also on receiving the right to fortify the ca.n.a.l. It must have these and other privileges on a long time grant. For them, it was willing to pay generously. Negotiations would be affected, one could not say how, by the Treaty of 1846 with Colombia, * by which the United States had received the right of free use of the isthmus, with the right of maintaining the neutrality of the district and in return had guaranteed to Colombia sovereignty over the isthmus.
* Then known as the Republic of New Granada.
Hay took up the negotiations with the Colombian charge d"affaires, Dr. Herran, and arranged a treaty, which gave the United States a strip of land six miles wide across the isthmus, on a ninety-nine year lease, for which it should pay ten million dollars and, after a period of nine years for construction, a quarter of a million a year. This treaty, after months of debate in press and Congress, was rejected by the Colombian Senate on August 12, 1903, though the people of Panama, nervously anxious lest this opportunity to sit on the bank of the world"s great highway should slip into the hands of their rivals of Nicaragua, had urged earnestly the acceptance of the terms. The majority of the Colombians probably expected to grant the American requests in time but were determined to force the last penny from the United States. As Hay wrote: "The Isthmus is looked upon as a financial cow to be milked for the benefit of the country at large. This difficulty might be overcome by diplomacy and money."
President Roosevelt at this point took the negotiations into his own hands. Knowing that the price offered was more than just, he decided to depend no longer on bartering. He ordered the American minister to leave Colombia, and he prepared a message to Congress proposing that the Americans proceed to dig the ca.n.a.l under authority which he claimed to find in the Treaty of 1846. It was, however, doubtful if Congress would find it there, particularly as so many Congressmen preferred the Nicaragua route. The President therefore listened with pleased attention to the rumors of a revolution planned to separate Panama from Colombia. Most picturesquely this information was brought by M. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a former engineer of the De Lesseps company, who glowed with the excitement of coming events. Roosevelt, however, relied more upon the information furnished by two American officers, who reported "that various revolutionary movements were being inaugurated."
On October 10, 1903, the President wrote to Dr. Albert Shaw, of the "Review of Reviews":
"I enclose you, purely for your own information, a copy of a letter of September 5th, from our minister to Colombia. I think it might interest you to see that there was absolutely not the slightest chance of securing by treaty any more than we endeavored to secure. The alternatives were to go to Nicaragua against the advice of the great majority of competent engineers-some of the most competent saying that we had better have no ca.n.a.l at this time than go there-or else to take the territory by force without any attempt at getting a treaty. I cast aside the proposition made at the time to foment the secession of Panama. Whatever other governments can do, the United States cannot go into the securing, by such underhand means, the cession. Privately, I freely say to you that I should be delighted if Panama were an independent state; or if it made itself so at this moment; but for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of a revolt, and therefore I cannot say it."
Nothing, however, prevented the President from keeping an attentive eye on the situation. On the 16th of October he directed the Navy Department to send ships to the Isthmus to protect American interests in case of a revolutionary outbreak. On the 2d of November, he ordered the squadron to "maintain free and uninterrupted transit.... Prevent the landing of any armed force with hostile intent, either government or insurgent, at any point within fifty miles of Panama." At 3:40 P.M., on the 3d of November, the acting Secretary of State telegraphed to the Isthmus for confirmation of a report to the effect that an uprising was in progress. A reply dated 8:15 P.M. stated that there had been none as yet, but that it was rumored one would take place during the night. On the 4th of November independence was proclaimed. The only fatality was a Chinaman killed in the City of Panama by a sh.e.l.l from the Colombian gunboat Bogota. Its commander was warned not to fire again. On the 6th of November, Secretary Hay instructed our consul to recognize the new republic, and on the 13th of November, President Roosevelt received Bunau-Varilla as its representative at Washington.
This prompt recognition of a new state, without waiting to allow the parent Government time to a.s.sert itself, was contrary to American practice. The United States had regarded as a most unfriendly act Great Britain"s mere recognition of the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy. The right of the United States to preserve the neutrality of the isthmus, as provided by the Treaty of 1846, certainly did not involve the right to intervene between the Government and revolutionists. On the other hand, the guarantee of possession which the United States had given to Colombia did involve supporting her Government to a reasonable extent; yet there could be little doubt that it was the presence of American ships which had made the revolution successful.
The possible implications of these glaring facts were cleverly met by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress and by the Secretary of State in the correspondence growing out of the affair. The Government really relied for its justification, however, not upon these technical pleas but upon the broad grounds of equity. America has learned in the last few years how important it is for its safety that "sc.r.a.ps of paper" be held sacred and how dangerous is the doctrine of necessity. Nevertheless it is well to observe that if the United States did, in the case of Panama, depart somewhat from that strict observance of obligations which it has been accustomed to maintain, it did not seek any object which was not just as useful to the world at large as to itself, that the situation had been created not by a conflict of opposing interests but by what the Government had good reason to believe was the bad faith of Colombia, and that the separation of Panama was the act of its own people, justly incensed at the disregard of their interests by their compatriots. This revolution created no tyrannized subject population but rather liberated from a galling bond a people who had, in fact, long desired separation.