File No. 1502/146A.
The Secretary of State to the British Ambassador.
Washington, February 20, 1909.
Excellency: On the 8th of January, ultimo, Secretary Root communicated to you, confidentially, a memorandum regarding an arrangement then in progress of negotiation between Panama and Colombia and the United States which was deemed of considerable importance, especially to us, because enabling the United States to execute peaceably the purposes of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty concluded between the United States and Great Britain on November 18, 1901. That memorandum reads as follows:
In 1903, in settling with Colombia the terms upon which the United States might obtain the opportunity to construct the Panama Canal as contemplated in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty of November 18, 1901, Mr. Hay included in the Hay-Herran treaty of January 22, 1903, a provision under which the war vessels of Colombia might pass through the canal free of duty. The United States has now, by the use of good offices and additional concessions on its own part, brought the Governments of the two sections which at that time constituted the Republic of Colombia, namely, Colombia and Panama, to the point of entering into an agreement under which Colombia will recognize the independence of Panama and confirm the title which Panama undertook to give to the United States to construct the canal by renouncing all Colombia’s claims. The proposed agreement will adjust the relations of the two to the public debt of Colombia, arrange for the settlement of the boundary, and provide for the exercise of election as to citizenship, and will constitute in general a treaty of separation.
As a part of this same arrangement of separation and to help bring it about, the United States is about to agree to the continuance of the right of passage on the part of Colombia which was formerly stipulated in the Hay-Herran treaty. The United States has not been unmindful of the provision of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty under which the Suez rules were adopted as bases for the neutrality of the canal, including the rule against discriminations between different nations; but we have assumed that that rule had no relation to the terms by means of which the title to the site of the canal and the opportunity to build might be obtained.
The Government of the United States will communicate a copy of the different treaties immediately upon the final settlement of their terms and hopes that the accomplishment of this very important step toward executing the purposes which the United States and Great Britain have shared for so many [Page 291] years, and an expression of which is embodied in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, will be received by Great Britain with special satisfaction.
Department of State,
Washington, January 8, 1909.
The arrangement thus described took the shape of formal treaties, which were signed on the 9th ultimo, and are now before the Senate of the United States with a view to the advice and consent of that body being given to their ratification. They are still under the injunction of secrecy, but it seems necessary and proper to a full understanding of the foregoing memorandum and the subsequent comparison of views between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain that the provision thereof pertinent to the present communication should be cited herein:
Article II of the treaty between the United States and Colombia reads:
In consideration of the provisions and stipulations hereinafter contained it is agreed, as follows:
The Republic of Colombia shall have liberty at all times to convey through the ship canal now in course of construction by the United States across the Isthmus of Panama the troops, materials for war, and ships of war of the Republic of Colombia, without paying any duty to the United States, even in the case of an international war between Colombia and another country.
While the said interoceanic canal is in course of construction the troops and materials for war of the Republic of Colombia, even in the case of an international war between Colombia and any other country, shall be transported on the railway between Ancon and Cristobal, or on any other railway substituted therefor, upon the same conditions on which similar service is rendered to the United States.
The officers, agents, and employees of the Government of Colombia shall, during the same period, be entitled to free passage upon the said railway across the Isthmus of Panama upon due notification to the railway officials and the production of evidence of their official character.
The foregoing provisions of this article shall not, however, apply in case of war between Colombia and Panama.
After conference with you on the subject, Secretary Root amplified the ideas of the Government of the United States on the subject in a personal note to you, dated January 16, which so fully sets forth the policy and motives of the United States in the premises that I can not do better than cite it textually, as follows:
Department of
State,
Washington, January 16,
1909.
Dear Mr. Ambassador: I think on reflection that I should follow your suggestion and put in writing the gist of the ideas which I conveyed to you orally in our interview last Thursday regarding the proposed concession to Colombia of the right to pass her war vessels through the Panama Canal, when completed, without the payment of any dues to the United States. The view of the United States upon this is, in substance, as follows:
The Hay-Pauncefote treaty of November 18, 1901, provided for the building of a canal in territory which was not under the jurisdiction of either of the contracting parties. The title to the land through which the canal was to be built, the authority to construct and operate, and jurisdiction and control over the canal when finished manifestly remained to be secured before the purposes of the treaty could be effected. The treaty said nothing about the way in which this should be accomplished. It follows by necessary implication that the agreements and arrangements to be made with the power or powers having right to grant or withhold the opportunity to construct and operate the canal must be quite different from the mere application of a scale of tolls to the nations of the world in general which had nothing whatever to do with the creation of the canal. Such agreements are ex necessitate outside of the rule of equality to all the world which was embodied in the Suez rules.
This view was recognized in the Hay-Herrán treaty of January 22, 1903, in which the United States of Colombia, while undertaking to grant the right [Page 292] to the construction of the canal, reserved the right “to pass their vessels, troops, and munitions of war at all times without paying any dues whatever.” This treaty was confirmed by the Senate of the United States, but failed of confirmation by the Congress of Colombia. Then followed the revolution inaugurated on the 3d of November, 1903, and the recognition of the independence of Panama by both the United States and Great Britain, and thereafter the grant by the Republic of Panama to the United States of various rights connected with the canal, including as well as the direct grant a consent by Panama to the purchase by the United States of the property and concessions of the New Panama Canal Co. which had been for a long time engaged in canal construction across the Isthmus, and which had rights the acquisition or removal of which was necessary to vest in the United States the right to construct the canal in accordance with the terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
Notwithstanding the grant by Panama in her treaty with the United States, there remained three subjects for serious consideration by the United States as affecting the peaceable and unquestioned title to the property and rights the acquisition of which was necessary to the execution of the canal project. One of these was that there still remained in force a treaty made in 1846 between the United States and Colombia, which was in existence at the time the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was made and under which the United States remained under special obligation to Colombia in respect of the very status of the canal. The second was that the only way to dispose of the prior and conclusive rights of the French Panama Canal Co., which stood in the way of the construction of the canal by the United States pursuant to the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, was by purchasing those rights and becoming the successor of the Panama Canal Co. under the concessionary contracts. In those contracts there were stipulations and reservations running to Colombia, including rights of forfeiture of property, and including an express stipulation for the right to pass her war vessels through the canal without the payment of dues. The third was the fact that Colombia had continuously refused to recognize the independence of Panama and stood ready to retake possession of the Isthmus and resume her control over it the moment that she was not prevented by the superior military and naval force of the United States; so that the only possession which was possible under the grant of Panama alone was the possession to be continuously maintained by force.
Under these circumstances the United States has deemed it to be its duty in the performance of the obligations which it assumed in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain, to fortify its title and assure its peaceable possession of the canal for the purposes of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty by securing the assent of Colombia to the separation of Panama, the renunciation of Colombia’s claims, and the consent of Colombia to the necessary modification of the treaty engagements of 1846 between the United States and Colombia. In order to accomplish this the United States has found it necessary to renew the reservation of the specific right of Colombia to send its warships through the canal without the payment of dues, which has been insisted upon by that country in every concession and treaty she has made regarding it (for example, the Panama Canal concession of 1878, Article VI; the Hay-Concha accepted proposal for a treaty between the United States and Colombia of April 18, 1902, sent by Mr. Hay to the American Congress and printed as a public document; and the Hay-Herran treaty of January 22, 1903, Articles XVI, XVII, and XVIII), and also to make the very substantial payment of a million and a quarter dollars, which the United States proposes to contribute toward the payment of Panama for the purpose of securing these rights.
The United States has considered not only that in prescribing the rule of equality in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty the parties must have contemplated the making of special arrangement by the United States with Colombia as the necessary source of title, but that the right to make such an exceptional arrangement still continues in view of Colombia’s continued special relation to the title; and this view is supported by the provision of the fourth article of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, which declares that no change of territorial sovereignty or of the international relations of the country or countries traversed by the before-mentioned canal shall affect the general principle of neutralization or the obligation of the high contracting parties under the present treaty.
Of course, in agreeing to accord to Colombia this reservation, the United States is not dealing with the general subject of canal tolls. It is treating Colombia for the reasons which I have described, as being in a wholly exceptional [Page 293] position, not subject to the rule of equality of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and not to come within any schedule of tolls which may hereafter be established, which must, of course, under the treaty, be equal for all nations to whom the rule of equality is properly applicable.
The United States is especially desirous that its course shall be understood by Great Britain, and that there shall be no thought on the part of that Government that the Government of the United States is unmindful of its obligations under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, or is willing, in any degree whatever, to fail in strict compliance with those obligations, and for this reason I am making this explanation in the hope that the Government of Great Britain will agree with us regarding the situation of Colombia as to the title to the canal to be so exceptional as not to come within the rule of equality of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, and will agree that the contemplated provision will constitute no precedent for the exception of any other nations from the payment of equal dues for the passage of war vessels in accordance with such schedules as shall be established in accordance with the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
Faithfully, yours,
Elihu Root.
In the meantime the ambassador of the United States at London had held similar conference with the foreign office and communicated our views in a memorandum dated January 20, in which the considerations above set forth were substantially reproduced.
I have now had the pleasure to receive from you, on the 3d instant, an aide mémoire confirming your oral communication of that day, to the effect that you had been instructed by the foreign office, in view of the special circumstances of the case and in view of the explanation that Mr. Root had offered, to inform me that His Majesty’s Government, on the receipt of a formal assurance that a precedent for similar and other occasions shall not be constituted by the special treatment granted to. Colombia with regard to free transit for her warships, are ready to forego the protest against the infringement of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty which they had intended to make. You added a proposal that this formal assurance and the acknowledgment thereof should be set forth in an exchange of notes.
Being thus in accord as to what is mutually understood to be an exceptional contingency growing out of the special circumstances of the case, and is, as explained by Mr. Root, a necessity toward the realization of the purpose for which the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was concluded, I have much pleasure in responding to your proposal by giving, on the part of the Government of the United States, through you, to His Majesty’s Government, formal confirmation of the assurance heretofore given to you by Secretary Root, that should the contemplated provision in favor of Colombia for the passage of Colombian warships through the Panama Canal become effective through the consummation of the treaty by ratification and exchange it will constitute no precedent for the exception of any other nations from the payment of equal dues for the passage of war vessels in accordance with such schedules as shall be established in conformity with the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
Your acknowledgment and acceptance of this formal assurance will make it clear by exchange of notes that the Government of Great Britain agrees with the Government of the United States in regarding the situation of Colombia as to the title to the canal to be so exceptional as not to come within the rule of equality of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
I have, etc.,