AN AMERICAN VIEW OF THE NICARAGUAN CANAL.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 3252, 27 February 1885, Page 3

AN AMERICAN VIEW OF THE NICARAGUAN CANAL.

(By Mr Harold Frederic, m a Home paper.) It is very far from being settled that the American people want to be responsible for the construction and maintenance of a ship canal across Nicaragua, but it they do decide m favor of the plan I do not think that the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty will be regarded as a very serious obstacle m its way. Of course the elements of uncertainty m the matter are largely increased by the fact that within a few months, certainly before definite action on the project can be taken, there will be not only be a change of Administration at Washington, but a change m party control. No . one can tell who will be President Cleveland's Secretary of State ; Still leas, what hia views on this particular subject will be. But it ought to be remembered that the Democratic party soon to assume control of government is very tenaoious of many of its ante hdlum traditions, and that it was the Democratic party whitih "fiercely condemned at the time the treaty arranged by the Whig John M. -Clayton, arid which subsequently, through .its last President, Buchanan, secured an understanding with Lord . Malmesbury which practically amounted to an abrogation of the Canal portions of the treaty. It ought not to be forgotten, too, that the treaty m question was made m the full understanding that a Nicaragua Canal was to be immediately constructed, under the joint direction and guardian-, ship of tho Uuited States and Great Britain^ with capital furnished by both Americans and Englishmen. The company was organised, the primary eurveys were wade by American eugi<

neers, and the work seemed likely to proceed with vigor. The story of the collapse of the scheme, beginning with the wrangle over British Honduras and ending with the chaos m Nicaraguan affairs wrought by the " grey-eyed man of destiny," need not be told here. It is enough that the project died. Then came our great Civil War, with its consequence of twenty years of material introspection, if I may use the phrase, during which period the Americans devoted themselves to developing their own country, as none had dreamed of doing it before, and, by the expedient of a Chinese wall of prohibitive tariffs, compelled all the enterprise, energy, an d capital of the country to wo rk m strictly domestic channels. " was as if a butterfly, conscious of having emerged from its cocoon prematurely, and feeling that it was rather ridiculous m the matter of development, should have resolutely gone back to its silken shell, and sternly set itself to the ordeal of a longer probation and a fresh start. I beg Mr Grant Allen's pardon for this crude and hasty manufacture of a metaphor from the materials with which he has woven such delightful work, but it expresses my meaning. Well, the chrysalis stage is ended now. Americans all feel that, like Lear, we don't quite know as yet what things we are going to do ; but we know they will be — not terrible, but great. Mr Blame expressed m a way this general desire to expand our affairs. With him the trouble was that public opinion always suspected his activity of having his incentive m jobbery or speculation. Of Mr Frelinghuyaen this is not true, and it will not be true of his successor, whether he be Senator Bayard or another. We have kept our home market to ourselves, and ourselves to our home market, quite long enough ; some think, much too long. A new order of things is at hand. If you try to put yourself m tho place of an American you will see that the rich Republic of to-day, with its twenty-five or more cities of over 100,000 inhabitants, with its trunk lines belting the vast continent, with its gigantic manufacturing plants, its imposing development of great agricultural States, and its fifty-five millions of people, is not likely to be deterred from any peaceful and honorable policy it may decide upon by the fact that over a third of a century ago, when it was poor, with few railroads, only a half-dozen big cities, scant development of its resources, and only about half of its present population, it entered into a one-sided agreement with Great Britain about a Canal which was to have been built, which, largely owing to Great Britain's fault, was not even begun, and about which nothing has ever been heard since 1857. Of course, if the Americans decide to go m for the canal the right of Great Britain to talk about the Clayton-Bulwer treaty will be courteously recognised, and, if possible, the very friendliest tone will be maintained m the discussion. But I think that at the back of the discussion, on our part, there will be a sort of moral ultimatum that, if it comes to I finalities, Great Britain is meddling m [ matters which are ours a thousand times more than they are hers, and that she had better stop. If I may be allowed to conclude with a figure familiar to American folk, and perhaps not altogether unintelligible here, it seems to a dispassionate looker-on that just now England has quite enough on I her hands on this side of the globe, and might wisely devote her time to her own knitting, and never mind the millinery of ncr Transatlantic cousins.