his government's bad case than his predecessor. In reply to Lord Granville's despatches of January 7th and 14th, Mr. Frelinghuysen addressed an admir able state paper to Mr. Lowell, in which he at least succeeded in narrowing down the issue to a few salient points of fact.

Beginning his despatch with a fresh statement of the general question, Frelinghuysen repeated Blaine's previous declarations that it appeared to the United States both "unnecessary and unwise, through an invitation to the nations of the earth, to guarantee the neutrality of the transit of the isthmus, or to give their navies a pretext for assembling in waters contiguous to our shores, or to possibly involve this republic in conflicts from which its natural position entitles it to be relieved." He then declared that in times of peace treaties were either harmless or useless, but that when wars came it was impossible to enforce them. Any such agreements among the powers of Europe in regard to the canal, must moreover lead to their political intervention in American affairs, "which the traditional policy of the United States makes it impossible that the President should either consent to or look upon with indifference," for "the formation of a protectorate by European nations over the isthmus transit would be in conflict with a doctrine which has been for many years asserted by the United States," and which "opposes any intervention by European nations in the political affairs of American republics." This was but a reassertion of the Monroe doc.

trine, to be taken for what it was worth, and Mr. Frelinghuysen knew full well from Blaine's experience just what effect it would have upon the British Foreign Secretary. So passing quickly from this introductory statement to his own historical objections to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, Freling. huysen first endeavored to show that the treaty fell naturally into two parts, Articles I to VII., containing "particular objects," and Article VIII., which concluded the treaty, containing a "general principle." The more important of the two particular objects was the immediate construction of a canal through Nicaragua, and with the events that transspired after the signing of the treaty, this immediate purpose of the convention, he maintained, had lapsed. The only other particular object of the treaty emanated entirely from the United States and consisted in a desire on their part to “dispossess Great Britain of settlements in Central America, whether under cover of Indian sovereignty or otherwise." Contrary to this second object Fre linghuysen declared, Great Britain exercised "dominion over Belize or British Honduras, the area of which is equal to that of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island"; whereas according to the terms of the Spanish grants, these English privileges "were confined to a right to cut wood and establish sawmills" within a much smaller territory. Now even admitting the validity of the so-called "declarations" made by Sir Henry Bulwer, and acknowl edged by Mr. Clayton, in regard to "Her Majesty's settlement at Honduras," still, Frelinghuysen main

tained, the British government had no right under the treaty of transforming this settlement into a colony. But he added, his government refused to be bound by these informal" declarations," as they were made subsequently to the conclusion of the treaty, and were never accepted either by the Senate or the President. They could not, therefore, be considered as part of the treaty. Nor could the United States be estopped in their objections to this Honduras colony by President Buchanan's avowal in 1860, for his satisfaction was only expressed at the British dispossession of the mouth of the canal and did not refer to British Honduras at all.

Coming finally to the general object of the treaty as contained in Article VIII., which provided for the co-operation of the two governments in the control of any other canal that might be built, Frelinghuysen answered that this only applied to the railway and canal lines proposed at the time of the signing of the treaty, in Tehuantepec, Nicaragua, and Panama, and could have no reference to the projects at present being discussed. These old provisions could not, therefore, now be brought up by Great Britain, to provide for an international guaranty of the Panama route, for even before the signing of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, the United States had assumed an exclusive guaranty of this route by a treaty with the then republic of New Granada, which was still in force, and this last named treaty could not justly be superseded, for a protectorate of this kind was, "like government, necessarily exclusive in character." For thirty years the United

States had continued to extend their protection to the Panama Railway during the most troublous times, and should Great Britain at this late date demand a share in such guaranty according to the provisions of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, they "would submit that experience has shown that no such joint protectorate is requisite," and "that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty is subject to the provisions of the treaty of 1848 with New Granada, while it exists, which treaty obliges the United States to afford, and secures to them, the sole protectorate of any transit by the Panama route."

Thus from the history as well as from the theory of the matter, Mr. Frelinghuysen finally concluded that the United States esteemed themselves competent to refuse to afford their protection jointly with Great Britain, and that they would furthermore "look with disfavor upon an attempt at a concert of political action by other powers in that direction." He therefore trusted that Lord Granville would be led to change his mind and agree to the modifica tions of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty suggested by his predecessor, Mr. Blaine.

Such a change of mind would have involved a complete reversal of the British policy toward the § 152. Lord isthmus, and could scarcely have been Granville's seriously expected. Instead, Lord GranTraversal ville despatched another note to Mr. West linghuysen's on December 30, 1882, traversing every one of Mr. Frelinghuysen's points in turn. In the first place the English Secretary denied

of Mr. Fre

Case.

that Article VIII. of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty only referred to the particular transit schemes then in question, and pointed out that in the article referred to, the protection of the two governments was first afforded to the Nicaraguan company of 1850, then "to any other practicable communication," and only in the last place "specially" to those "which are now proposed to be established by way of Tehuantepec or Panama." Lord Granville further called attention to the fact that in the treaties which the United States and Great Britain had negotiated with the Central American states since 1850, the principle of joint protection had in each case been acknowledged, and inasmuch as the United States had seen fit to negotiate such treaties, they could not now fall back on the older convention of 1848. But even in this treaty with Colombia, Granville could see no exclusive right of protection conferred upon the United States, and did not therefore consider his government shut out thereby from any joint guaranty of the isthmus.

In regard to the British colony at Belize, Lord Granville was easily able to demonstrate that this had been acquired by conquest long before the signing of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and that English rights in this region had, moreover, been expressly excepted before Great Britain had consented to ratify the convention. Furthermore, the English diplomatist was able to convict our State Department of an inconsistency by pointing out that since that time the United States government had form