CANAL TOLLS: PIRST FIGHT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 78, 2 April 1914, Page 6

CANAL TOLLS: PIRST FIGHT

Just as President Wilson enforced his low tariff upon Congress, so he has impressed on the House of Representatives the repeal of the clause exempting United States shipping from Panama Canal tolls. It now remains to be seen whether he will bo equally successful in the Senate, which body has frequently been a stumbling-block to the Cabinet's foreign policy. If that obstacle is surmounted, the principal difficulty of Anglo-American diplomacy during the last two years will be removed } and, despite the Mexicah situation, the two countries will take up the celebration of the hundred years of peace with the consciousness that a breach of faith on the part of one of them has been completely and honourably repaired, If that happy position is attained the chief credit will be duo to the lofty personality of President Wilson, whose high character towers above the intriguing politicians who misrepresent the real America. Chief among these mis-representatives on the present occasion is Mr. Champ Clark, whose main asset appears to be his name and a facility for talking transparent jingoism. Red herrings like "facing the world in arms," defending "the Monroe Doctrine," and preventing the control of the Canal going to Britain ("whom we have defeated on many occasions"), are drawn across the trail by Mr. Clark in order to obscure the simple fact that the Bill is cancelling a preference which the United States had pledged herself in honour never to give. There is no ques> tion of Britain's controlling the Canal, and the Monroe Doctrine is not in danger ; and all the Clark gallery play has not misled the majority of the House of Representatives. A remarkable- thing is that President Wilson has carried his Bill not only against people like Mr. Clark, but against the Democratic House Leader, Mr. Underwood— who gives his name to the new tariff— and against the Democratic platform.