Problems of the Pacific Part 11

"The stipulations of the present Treaty shall not be applicable to any of His Britannic Majesty's Dominions, Colonies, Possessions, or Protectorates beyond the seas, unless notice of adhesion shall have been given on behalf of any such Dominion, Colony, Possession, or Protectorate by His Britannic Majesty's Representative at Tokio before the expiration of two years from the date of the exchange of the ratifications of the present Treaty."

A few weeks after the conclusion of this Trade Treaty the British-j.a.panese Alliance was renewed on terms which practically "draw its sting" and abolish the contingency of a British-j.a.panese war against the United States, or against any Power with which Great Britain makes an Arbitration Treaty. The preamble of the British-j.a.panese Treaty now reads:

"The Government of Great Britain and the Government of j.a.pan, having in view the important changes which have taken place in the situation since the conclusion of the Anglo-j.a.panese Agreement of the 12th August, 1905, and believing that a revision of that Agreement responding to such changes would contribute to the general stability and repose, have agreed upon the following stipulations to replace the Agreement above mentioned, such stipulations having the same object as the said Agreement, namely:

"(a) The consolidation and maintenance of the general peace in the regions of Eastern Asia and of India.

"(b) The preservation of the common interests of all Powers in China by insuring the independence and integrity of the Chinese Empire, and the principle of equal opportunities for the commerce and industry of all nations in China.

"(c) The maintenance of the territorial rights of the High Contracting Parties in the regions of Eastern Asia and of India and the defence of their special interests in the said regions."

The chief clauses are:

"If, by reason of unprovoked attack or aggressive action wherever arising on the part of any Power or Powers, either High Contracting Party should be involved in war in defence of its territorial rights or special interests mentioned in the preamble of this Agreement, the other High Contracting Party will at once come to the a.s.sistance of its ally and will conduct the war in common and make peace in mutual agreement with it.

"The High Contracting Parties agree that neither of them will, without consulting the other, enter into separate arrangements with another Power to the prejudice of the objects described in the preamble of this Agreement.

"Should either High Contracting Party conclude a Treaty of General Arbitration with a third Power, it is agreed that nothing in this Agreement shall entail upon such Contracting Party an obligation to go to war with the Power with whom such Treaty of Arbitration is in force.

"The present Agreement shall come into effect immediately after the date of its signature, and remain in force for ten years from that date."

It will be recognised that there is very little left now of the very thorough Treaty of 1902. It does not suit j.a.panese foreign policy that this fact should be accentuated, and public opinion in that country has been generally muzzled. Nevertheless, some candid opinions on the subject have been published in the j.a.panese press. Thus the Osaka _Mainichi_ last January, discussing evidently a j.a.panese disappointment at the failure of Great Britain to join j.a.pan in some move against Russia, claimed that "for all practical purposes, the Anglo-j.a.panese Alliance ended with its revision last July." In the opinion of the _Mainichi_, "the Alliance no longer furnishes any guarantee for the preservation of Chinese integrity. So far from j.a.pan and Great Britain taking, as the terms of the Alliance provide, joint action to protect the rights and interests of the two nations when the same are threatened, no measures have been taken at all." According to the _Mainichi_, "England is no longer faithful to the principle of the Alliance as regards the territorial integrity of China, and it is even rumoured that she has intentions on Tibet, similar to those of Russia in Mongolia. Consequently it is a matter of supreme importance to know whether the Alliance is to be considered as still alive or not, and the j.a.panese Government would do well to make some explicit declaration on the subject."

This view was supported by the Tokio _Nichi-Nichi_, which wrote: "For a long time now the feeling between Great Britain and j.a.pan has been undergoing a change. There is no concealing the fact that it is no longer what it was before the Russo-j.a.panese War. At the time of the Tariff the friendly relations were only maintained by concessions from the side of the j.a.panese. The revision of the terms of the Alliance has reduced it from a real value to this country to a merely nominal value.

The friendship which has been steadily growing between Great Britain and Russia is something to be watched. The action of Great Britain in the China trouble has not been true to the Alliance. The tacit consent given to Russian action in Mongolia is a violation of the integrity of China, and on top of it we are informed that Great Britain at the right moment will adopt similar steps in Tibet."

The British-j.a.panese Treaty, for as much as it stands for, is the only definite treaty affecting big issues in the Pacific to-day. To attempt to discuss all possible treaties and combinations in the Pacific would be, of course, impossible. But some notice must be given of the recent remarkable hint of the possibilities of an "understanding" between Germany and the United States on Pacific questions. In February Mr Knox, the United States Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, communicated in a formal Note to Germany some views on Pacific questions. Commenting on this, the _New York Sun_, whose correspondent at Washington is a great deal in the confidence of the Government, commented: "The significance of Mr Knox's Note as a warning will, it is thought, be clearly seen by the other Powers. The fact that the writing and publication of Mr Knox's Note are the result of an understanding between Germany and the United States will greatly add to the force of the doc.u.ment. The other Powers, according to the Washington view, will hesitate long before embarking upon the policy of advancing their special interests by taking advantage of China's distress when Germany and the United States are standing together before the world in opposition to any such move."

An "understanding" between Germany and the United States to act together on the Asiatic side of the Pacific littoral would have its strategic importance in the fact that German power in the Atlantic would help to lessen certain risks consequent upon the United States concentrating her naval forces in the Pacific.

Another reasonably possible combination should be noted. As one of three partners in the Triple Entente, Great Britain has an understanding with Russia, which might possibly affect one day the position in the Pacific.

It is a fact rumoured among European diplomats that France, with the idea of maintaining the Triple Entente as a basis of future world-action, has urged Russia to build a Pacific Fleet, abandoning naval expansion in the Baltic and the Black Sea. With a strong Pacific Fleet Russia would certainly be a much more valuable friend to France and to Great Britain than at present. But that is "in the air." The actual position is that Great Britain and Russia are on such excellent terms that they can fish amicably together to-day in the very disturbed waters of Persia, and are possible future partners in the Pacific.

Those who consider a British-Russian alliance as impossible, forget the history of centuries and remember only that of a generation. Anciently the Russian and the Englishman were the best of friends, and Russian aid was often of very material use to Great Britain. It was in the eleventh century that King Canute established English naval power in the Baltic, and thus opened up a great trade with the Russian town of Novgorod. He helped the young Russian nation much in so doing. After Canute's death this trade with Russia languished for five centuries. But in the sixteenth century it was revived, and some centuries later it was said of this revival: "The discovery of a maritime intercourse with the Great Empire of Russia, and the consequent extension of commerce and navigation, is justly regarded by historians as the first dawn of the wealth and naval preponderance of England." Some indeed hold that the great exploits of the Elizabethan era of British seamanship would not have been possible without the maritime supplies--cordage, canvas, tallow, spars and salt beef--obtained from Russia.

The benefits of the friendship were not all on one side. In the seventeenth century England helped Russia with arms, supplies and troops against the Poles. In 1747 England paid Russia to obtain an army of 37,000 troops which was employed in Holland. Later it was agreed that Russia was to keep ready, on the frontiers of Livonia, an army of 47,000 troops beside forty galleys to be used in the defence of Hanover, for England, if needed. At a later date Catherine the Great of Russia was appealed to for 20,000 troops for service against the revolted American colonies, an appeal which she very wisely rejected. In the wars against Napoleon, Great Britain and Russia were joint chiefs of the European coalition, and a Russian Fleet was stationed in British waters doing good service at the time of the Mutiny of the Nore. A British-Russian understanding, in short, has been the rule rather than the exception in European politics since the fifteenth century.

An instinct of friendliness between Great Britain and the United States, though expressed in no formal bonds, is yet a great force in the Pacific. There has been at least one occasion on which an American force in the Pacific has gone to the help of a British naval force engaging an Asiatic enemy. There are various more or less authentic stories showing the instinct of the armed forces of both nations to fraternise.

Sometimes it is the American, sometimes the British sailor who is accused of breaking international law in his bias for the men of his own speech and race. It would not be wise to record incidents, which were irregular if they ever happened, and which, therefore, had best be forgotten. But the fact of the American man-of-war's-men in Apia Harbour, Samoa, finding time during their own rush to destruction at the hands of a hurricane to cheer a British warship steaming out to safety, is authentic, and can be cited without any harm as one instance of the instinctive friendship of the two peoples in the Pacific of common blood and common language.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] This proposal has now (1912) been revived in the face of the disquieting uprise of Chinese power. It is an indication of the stubborn resolve of the White populations to prohibit Asiatic immigration.

CHAPTER XV

THE PANAMA Ca.n.a.l

The poetry that is latent in modern science, still awaiting its singer, shows in the story of the Panama Ca.n.a.l. Nature fought the great French engineer, de Lesseps, on that narrow peninsula, and conquered him. His project for uniting the waterways of the Pacific and the Atlantic was defeated. But not by hills or distances. Nature's chief means of resistance to science was the mobilising of her armies of subtle poisoners. The microbes of malaria, yellow fever, of other diseases of the tropical marshes, fell upon the ca.n.a.l workers. The mortality was frightful. Coolie workers, according to one calculation, had a year's probability of life when they took to work on the ca.n.a.l. The superintendents and engineers of the White Race went to their tasks as soldiers go to a forlorn hope. Finally the forces of disease conquered.

The French project for cutting a ca.n.a.l through the isthmus of Panama was abandoned, having ruined the majority of those who had subscribed to its funds, having killed the majority of those who had given to it of their labour.

The United States having decided to take over the responsibility for a task of such advantage to the world's civilisation, gave to it at the outset the benefit of a scientific consideration touched with imagination. There were hills to be levelled, ditches to be dug, water-courses to be tamed, locks to be built. All that was clear enough.

But how to secure the safety of the workers? Nature's defenders, though fed fat with victory, were still eager, relentless for new victims.

Science said that to build a ca.n.a.l wholesome working conditions must be created: yellow fever and malaria abolished. Science also told how. The ma.s.sacre of the mosquitoes of the isthmus was the first task in ca.n.a.l-building.

The mosquitoes, the disseminators of the deadly tropical diseases, were attacked in their breeding grounds, and their larvae easily destroyed by putting a film of oil over the surface of the shallow waters in which they lived. The oil smothered the life in the larvae, and they perished before they had fully developed. The insect fortunately has no great range of flight. Its life is short, and it cannot pa.s.s far from its birthplace. Herodotus tells how Egyptians avoided mosquitoes by sleeping in high towers. The natives of Papua escape them by building their huts in the forks of great trees. If the mosquitoes are effectively exterminated within a certain area, there is certainty of future immunity from them within that area if the marshes, the pools--the stagnant waters generally on its boundaries--are thereafter guarded during the hatching season against the chance of mosquito larvae coming to winged life. At Suez scientists had found this all out. Science conquered the mosquito in Panama as it had been conquered elsewhere, and the entrenchments of Nature crumbled away. Henceforth it was a matter of rock-cutters, steam shovels and explosives, the A B C of modern knowledge. But the mosquito put up a stubborn fight. Driven out of the marshes, it found a refuge in the cisterns of houses, even in the holy-water founts of churches. Every bit of stagnant water within the isthmus area had to be protected against the chance of mosquitoes coming to life before the campaign was successful. To-day the isthmus of Panama is by no means unhealthy, and the work of ca.n.a.l-cutting progresses so well that Mr President Taft was able to announce recently the probability of it being opened two years before the due date. That brings the ca.n.a.l as a realised fact right into the present.

Some few facts regarding this engineering work. It will cost about 70,000,000. The total length of the ca.n.a.l to be made from sea to sea is 50-1/2 miles, with a maximum width on the bottom of 1000 feet. The land excavation is 40-1/2 miles of cutting through rock, sand and clay, leaving 10 miles of channel to be deepened to reach the sea at either end. Some of the other construction dimensions are these:--

Locks, usable length 1,000 feet.

Locks, usable width 110 feet.

Gatun Lake, area 164 square miles.

Gatun Lake, channel depth 84 to 45 feet.

Excavation, estimated total 174,666,594 cubic yards.

Concrete, total estimated for ca.n.a.l 5,000,000 cubic yards.

The Gatun is the greatest rock and earth-fill dam ever attempted.

Forming Gatun Lake by impounding the waters of the Chagres and other streams, it will be nearly 1-1/2 miles long, nearly 1/2 mile wide at its base, about 400 feet wide at the water surface, about 100 feet wide at the top. Its crest, as planned, will be at an elevation of 115 feet above mean sea-level, or 30 feet above the normal level of the lake. The interior of the dam is being formed of a natural mixture of sand and clay placed between two large ma.s.ses of rock, and miscellaneous material obtained from steam-shovel excavation at various points along the ca.n.a.l.

Gatun Lake will cover an area of 164 square miles, with a depth in the ship channel varying from 85 to 45 feet. The necessity for this artificial lake is because of the rugged hills of Panama. A sea-level ca.n.a.l would have been a financial impossibility. By a lock system lifting vessels up to Gatun Lake (a height of 85 feet), an immense amount of excavation was saved. Incidentally the alarm was allayed of that ingenious speculator who foretold that the Gulf Stream would take a new path through the Panama Ca.n.a.l and desert the West Coast of Europe, on the climate of which it has so profound an influence. When the ca.n.a.l was opened England was to revert to her "natural climate"--that of Labrador! But since the ca.n.a.l will not be a sea-level one, it cannot of course have the slightest effect on ocean currents. The amount of Pacific and Atlantic water which will be mutually exchanged by its agency each year will be insignificant.

The Panama Ca.n.a.l, when opened, will be exclusively United States property; it will be fortified and defended by the United States army and navy: and it will probably in time of peace be used to help United States trade, and in time of war to help the United States arms. All those conclusions are natural, since the United States has found the money for the work, and claims under the Monroe doctrine an exclusive hegemony of the American continent south of the Canadian border. But originally it was thought that the ca.n.a.l would be, in a sense, an international one. Later the idea was entertained, and actually embodied, in a treaty between Great Britain and the United States that whilst "the United States should have the exclusive right of providing for the regulation and management of the ca.n.a.l," it should not be fortified. But the Treaty of 1902 between Great Britain and the United States abrogated that, and provided for the "neutralisation" of the ca.n.a.l. It was stipulated that "the United States adopts, as the basis of the neutralisation of such ship ca.n.a.l, the following rules, substantially as embodied in the Convention of Constantinople, signed the 28th October 1888, for the free navigation of the Suez Ca.n.a.l." The Rules provide that the ca.n.a.l shall be open to the vessels of commerce and war of all nations on terms of equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any nation or its citizens or subjects in respect to conditions or charges.

Rule 2 states: "The ca.n.a.l shall never be blockaded, nor shall any right of war be exercised, nor any act of hostility be committed within it.

The United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the ca.n.a.l as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder." The third rule prohibits vessels of war of a belligerent from revictualling or taking on stores in the ca.n.a.l except so far as may be strictly necessary. Under Rule 4 belligerents may not embark or disembark troops, munitions of war, or warlike materials, except in case of accidental hindrance in transit, "and in that case the transit shall be resumed with all possible despatch.

Waters adjacent to the ca.n.a.l within three marine miles of either end are considered as part of the ca.n.a.l. Vessels of war of a belligerent are not permitted to remain in those waters longer than twenty-four hours, except in case of distress." The last rule makes the plant, establishments, buildings, and the works necessary for the construction, maintenance and operation of the ca.n.a.l part of the ca.n.a.l, "and in time of war, as in time of peace, they shall enjoy complete immunity from attack or injury by belligerents, and from acts calculated to impair their usefulness as part of the ca.n.a.l."

But it seems clear that anything, stated or implied, in that Treaty, which is calculated to limit the sovereign rights of the United States in regard to the ca.n.a.l, will be allowed to be forgotten, for the ca.n.a.l has lately, since the question of the control of the Pacific came to the front, shown to the United States even more as a military than as an industrial necessity. In war time the United States will use the ca.n.a.l so that she may mobilise her Fleet in either ocean. Already she has pa.s.sed estimates amounting to 3,000,000 for installing 14-inch guns, searchlights, and submarine mines at either entrance. She is also establishing a naval base at Cuba to guard the Atlantic entrance, and designs yet another base at the Galapagos Islands. At present those islands belong to Ecuador, and Ecuador objects to parting with them. But it is probable that a way will be found out of that difficulty, for it is clear that a strong United States naval base must be established on the Pacific as well as the Atlantic threshold of the ca.n.a.l. This base, with another at Cuba, would meet the objection I saw raised by an American Admiral last year when he said: "In the event of the United States being at war with a first-cla.s.s naval Power, I doubt very much whether the ca.n.a.l would be used once hostilities were declared. I a.s.sume that our opponent would have so disposed his Fleets as to engage ours in the Atlantic or Pacific coasts according as circ.u.mstances might require, and that if we were stupid or careless enough to be caught napping with our vessels scattered, no person in authority with any sense would risk sending our ships through the ca.n.a.l. Our enemy would lie in wait for us and pick off our vessels as they entered or emerged from the ca.n.a.l, and every advantage would be on their side and against us. This, of course, is on the a.s.sumption that the opposing force would be at least as powerful as our own. If we had preponderating strength conditions would be different, but if the navies were evenly matched it would be hazardous in the extreme to use the ca.n.a.l. Nor would the fortifications be of much help to us. So long as our ships remained within the waters of the ca.n.a.l zone they would, of course, be under the protection of the guns of the forts, but as soon as they came on the high seas, where they would have to come if they were to be of any use, the fortifications would be of little benefit to them, and little injury to the enemy."

But when to the actual fortification of the ca.n.a.l is added the provision of a strong advanced base near each entrance, this criticism falls to the ground. Between those advanced bases would be "American water," and on either base a portion of the American Fleet could hold an enemy in check until the mobilisation of the whole Fleet.

The world must make up its mind to the fact that the Panama Ca.n.a.l is intended by the United States as a means of securing her dominance in the Pacific, without leaving her Atlantic coast too bare of protection in the event of a great war. Great Britain is the only Power with any shadow of a claim to object, and her claim would be founded on treaties and arrangements which she has either abrogated or allowed to fall into oblivion. Probably it will never be put forward. By a course of negotiation, which, for steadiness of purpose and complete concealment of that purpose until the right time came for disclosure, might be a pattern to the most effective fighting despotism, the American democracy has surmounted all obstacles of diplomacy in Panama just as the obstacles of disease and distance were surmounted. The reluctance of a disorderly sister Republic to grant the territory for the ca.n.a.l was overcome by adding a beneficent one to its numerous useless revolutions.

The jealousy of Europe was first soothed and ultimately defied. It is safe to venture the opinion that the reluctance of Ecuador to part with the Galapagos will also be overcome. Then from New York to Pekin will stretch a series of American naval bases--Cuba, Panama, the Galapagos, Hawaii, the Philippines.

The intention, announced on some authority, of the United States to use the ca.n.a.l in times of peace as a tariff weapon for the furthering of American trade may arouse some protest, but it is difficult to see how such a protest can have any effect. The United States will be able to reply that it is her ca.n.a.l, bought with her own money, and that it is her right, therefore, to do with it as she pleases. In a special message to Congress at the end of 1911, Mr Taft urged the necessity for the establishment of preferential rates for American shipping pa.s.sing through the Panama Ca.n.a.l. He cited the practice of foreign Governments in subsidising their merchant vessels, and declared that an equivalent remission of ca.n.a.l tolls in favour of American commerce could not be held to be discrimination. The message went on: "Mr Taft does not believe that it would be the best policy wholly to remit the tolls for domestic commerce for reasons purely fiscal. He desires to make the ca.n.a.l sufficiently profitable to meet the debt ama.s.sed for its construction, and to pay the interest upon it. On the other hand, he wishes to encourage American commerce between the Atlantic and the Pacific, especially in so far as it will insure the effectiveness of the ca.n.a.l as a compet.i.tor with the trans-Continental railways." The President concluded, therefore, that some experimentation in tolls would be necessary before rates could be adjusted properly, or the burden which American shipping could equitably bear could be definitely ascertained. He hinted at the desirability of entrusting such experimentation to the executive rather than to the legislative branch of the Government.

In plain language, the United States Government asked for a free hand to shape rates for the use of the Panama Ca.n.a.l so that American shipping interests could be promoted. The shipping affected would not be merely from one American port to another, but between American and foreign countries. By the present shipping laws American "coastal trade" i.e.

trade between one American port and another, even if one of the ports be Manila or Honolulu, is closely safeguarded for American bottoms by a rigid system of Protection.

A _Daily Telegraph_ correspondent, writing from New York to London at the time of Mr President Taft's message, described the trend of American public opinion which was shown by the changing of the registry of the Red Star liners _Kroonland_ and _Finland_ from Belgian to American.

"This morning Captain Bradshaw, an American, a.s.sumed command, and the ceremony of hauling down the foreign flag and hoisting the Stars and Stripes took place. The reasons for the change are not announced, but it is said that the approaching completion of the Panama Ca.n.a.l has something to do with it, and shipping circles here declare that the change of registry presages the entry of the _Kroonland_ and her sister ship the _Finland_ into the American coast trade between Pacific and Atlantic ports, _via_ the Panama Ca.n.a.l. It is expected that a heavy subsidy will be given to American steamships by the United States Government carrying mails from the Atlantic to the Pacific _via_ Panama, and it is generally believed that the owners of the _Kroonland_ and the _Finland_ have this in mind."

Clearly the United States, having expended 70,000,000 directly, and a great deal indirectly, on the Panama Ca.n.a.l, intends to put it to some profitable use, both in war time and in peace time. Naval supremacy in the Pacific in war time, industrial supremacy in peace time--those are the benefits which she expects to derive.