File No. 811f.812/446.
American Embassy,
London,
March 6, 1914.
168. The President’s address to Congress on Panama Canal tolls is
published in full in all the chief newspapers here and the most
appreciative and complimentary comment appears in press of all parties
and is heard on all sides.
The Act repealing the exemption.
63d Congress. H. R 14385.
Public Doc. No. 113.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That the second sentence in section five of the
Act entitled “An Act to provide for the opening, maintenance,
protection, and operation of the Panama Canal, and the sanitation
and government of the Canal Zone,” approved August twenty-fourth,
nineteen hundred and twelve, which reads as follows: “No tolls shall
be levied upon vessels engaged in the coastwise trade of the United
States,” be, and the same is hereby, repealed.
Sec. 2. That the third sentence of the
third paragraph of said section of said Act be so amended as to read
as follows: “When based upon net registered tonnage for ships of
commerce the tolls shall not exceed $1.25 per net registered ton,
nor be less than 75 cents per net registered ton, subject, however,
to the provisions of article nineteen of the convention between the
United States and the Republic of Panama, entered into November
eighteenth, nineteen hundred and three”: Provided, That the passage of this Act shall not be
construed or held as a waiver or relinquishment of any right the
United States may have under the treaty with Great Britain, ratified
the twenty-first of February, nineteen hundred and two, or the
treaty with the Republic of Panama, ratified February twenty-sixth,
nineteen hundred and four, or otherwise, to discriminate in favor of
its vessels by exempting the vessels of the United States or its
citizens from the payment of tolls for passage through said canal,
or as in any way waiving, impairing, or affecting any right of the
United States under said treaties, or otherwise, with respect to the
sovereignty over or the ownership, control, and management of said
canal and the regulation of the conditions or charges of traffic
through the same.
