seize it at any time before it could be fortified. The modifications desired are set out in specific terms; the first of. them is to relieve the United States of the prohibition against controlling the Canal. But while Mr. Blaine asks for this change, he couples his request with a specific declaration as to equality made in these terms, 'nor does the United States seek any exclusive or narrow commercial advantage. It frankly agrees, and will by public proclamation declare, at the proper time, in conjunction with the Republic on whose soil the Canal may be located, that the same rights and privileges, the same tolls and obligations for the use of the Canal, shall apply with absolute impartiality to the merchant marine of every nation on the globe.'[1]
There followed a long diplomatic correspondence,[2] with no result,[3] and the exchange of views is only of interest as showing that the condition of equal treatment was to remain in force in the event of the Treaty being modified.
The question again slumbered, but in 1898 the necessity for some short cut by sea between the two oceans was brought home to the people of the United States in a practical way. They were at war with Spain, but the Oregon on the Pacific Coast could not be brought to the area of operations in the Atlantic except by travelling round Cape Horn, a voyage of some 13,000 miles; an impressive illustration of the fact that unless there were some Canal, the United States fleet on the two seaboards could not be united except after a delay which might, in some circumstances, prove fatal. Moreover, new territories in the Pacific had been just acquired, the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines; and
