No. 310.
Lord Granville to Mr. West.
August 17, 1883.
Sir: On the 29th May last Mr. Lowell communicated to me a copy of a further dispatch, dated the 5th of that month, which he had received from Mr. Frelinghuysen, respecting the projected Panama Canal, of which a copy was forwarded to, you in my dispatch No. 128, of the 16th June last.
By my dispatches of the 7th and 14th January and 30th December, 1882, which were written in answer to several letters addressed by the United States Secretaries of State to the American ministers at this court, and with the contents of which I had been made officially acquainted, [Page 530] you were informed of the views which .tier Majesty’s Government entertained on that important subject.
Mr. Frelinghuysen, however, in his letter to Mr. Lowell of the 5th May last, after commenting upon the contents of my last dispatch to you, of the 30th December last, says that the President still considers that the arguments which have been presented to Her Majesty’s Government by the United States upon this subject remain unshaken, and that he adheres to the views set forth in the instructions which were given to Mr. Lowell on the 8th May, 1882, a copy of which was communicated to me on the 31st of that month.
This further dispatch from Mr. Frelinghuysen to Mr. Lowell has been carefully considered by Her Majesty’s Government.
They have not failed to remark that Mr. Frelinghuysen still contends that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty is voidable on two grounds: first, because the first seven articles of that treaty related to a particular canal by the Nicaraguan route only; and, secondly, because Great Britain has at the present day a colony, instead of a settlement, at Belize; but, with regard to the first of these contentions, I explained to-you in my dispatch of the 30th December last why Her Majesty’s Government were unable to accept that view, bearing in mind the eighth article of the convention. I pointed out to you that it was expressly recorded in that article that the high contracting parties, in entering into that convention, had not only the desire to accomplish a particular object, but also to establish a general principle, and that, with that view, they agreed to extend their protection by treaty stipulations to “any other” practicable communications, whether by canal or railway, “across the isthmus” which connected North and South America, and “especially” to the interoceanic communications, should the same prove to be practicable, whether by canal or railway, which it was then proposed should be established by the way of Tehuantepec or Panama.
No time was fixed by the convention within which such interoceanic communications were to be madeand Her Majesty’s Government consider that it would be putting a false construction on the convention to say that the stipulations contained in the eighth article had sole reference to the canal schemes which were actually under consideration at the time of the conclusion of that convention, for had such been the intention of the contracting parties they clearly would not have made use of the expressions “especially” or “any other,” when speaking of the canals which it was then contemplated might be made across the isthmus.
With regard to Mr. Frelinghuysen’s further contention, that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty has been abrogated by the fact that British Honduras is now a “colony,” instead of remaining a “settlement,” as it was called at the time of the conclusion of that treaty, I need only remark, in addition to what has already been stated to you in my previous dispatches, that when that treaty was concluded, in 1850, it was signed on the distinct understanding expessed in writing, that it was not to apply to “Her Majesty’s settlement at Honduras,” and that it was therefore not deemed necessary, at that time, either to mark out the exact limits of that settlement or to define its “dependencies.”
Inasmuch, then, as British Honduras was expressly excluded altogether from the arrangement which was entered into between the two Governments in 1850 for the settlement of the questions then in dispute, and all of which questions President Buchanan informed the United States Congress in December, 1860, had been amicably and honorably adjusted, Her Majesty’s Government cannot see with what justice it can [Page 531] now be said that the change of title of that possession of Her Majesty from that of a “settlement” to a “colony” can be appealed to as a violation of the arrangement of 1850.
You were informed in my dispatch of the 30th December last that I did not think it necessary to burden the correspondence on the Panamas Canal question with a discussion on the so-called “Monroe doctrine, because Mr. Frelinghuysen had admitted, in his dispatch of the 8th May, 1882, that Her Majesty’s Government were not called upon either to admit or deny the views which he explained in that dispatch as being those which were entertained by his Government on that subject; but as Mr. Frelinghuysen, in his dispatch of the 5th May last, still maintains that the views of the United States on that doctrine are sufficiently manifest, I may remind you that the views which were entertained by President Monroe have not always been accepted by his successors; nor have the same views been always entertained either by the American Congress or by the Secretaries of State of the United States; but the mere fact that a treaty was concluded between this country and the United States in 1850 (twenty-seven years after the so-called “Monroe doctrine” was enunciated), for the express purpose of establishing communication by ship-canal across the isthmus of Central America, and of jointly protecting any such communication which might be made, is a clear proof that neither the American administration of that day nor the United States Congress which sanctioned that treaty considered that they were precluded by the utterances of President Monroe in 1823 from entering into such a treaty with one or more of the European powers. How, then, can it be said, at the present day, that the Clayton-Bulwer treaty is opposed to the “Monroe doctrine”?
Mr. Buchanan admitted, in January, 1854, that “the main feature of the policy which dictated the Clayton-Bulwer convention was to prevent either Great Britain or the United States from being placed in a position to exercise exclusive control, in peace or war, over any of the grand thoroughfares between the two oceans”; and that being the policy which Her Majesty’s Government are still anxious to adhere to, it has been with much regret that they have seen a disposition on the part of the present Government of the United States to depart from that policy by objecting to any concerted action of the European powers for the purpose of guaranteeing the neutrality of the projected Panama Canal or determining the conditions of its use.
The President of the United States stated, in a message to Congress in March, 1880, that the present policy of the United States with respect to an interoceanic canal is the construction of “a canal under American control”; but it was pointed out to you, in my dispatch of January 7, 1882, that, while recognizing to the fullest degree the extent to which the United States must feel interested with regard to any canal which may be constructed across the Isthmus of Panama, Her Majesty’s Government would be wanting in regard to their duty if they failed to point out that Great Britain had large colonial possessions, no less than great commercial interests, which rendered any means of unobstructed and rapid access from the Atlantic to the North and South Pacific Oceans a matter for her also of the greatest importance.
Her Majesty’s Government see no reason whatever to depart from or in any way to alter the views which have been conveyed to you in my dispatches above referred to, and they have, therefore, arrived at the conclusion that a prolongation of the discussion seems unlikely to lead to any practical result.
[Page 532]I have made the above observations on Mr. Frelinghuysen’s note for your information and guidancebut you are at liberty to read this dispatch to Mr. Frelinghuysen, and to give him a copy of it should he desire it.
I am, &c.,