The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1914. PANAMA CANAL TOLLS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14219, 17 February 1914, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1914. PANAMA CANAL TOLLS.

/me vexed question of the right of American shipping to be exempt from the payment of Panama Canal tolls has now entered upon a new, and, it is to be hoped, the final phase. President Wilson, who has already stated that such a course would be a viola) ion of the HayPauuceforte Treaty, has asked the United States Congress to' repeal the clauses in the Panama Canal Act of 1912 dealing with tolls. Those clauses give authority to fix the tolls at a rate not exceeding one dollar twenty-five cents per ton, declare American coastal shipping free from payment of same, and give authority to fix a smaller charge for American vessels than for others! When President Taft signed this inequitable measure he made the extraordinary declaration that the words “all nations’’ in the Hay-Pannce-lorto Treaty really meant “all nations o.her than the United States.’’ President Wihon, a man who scorns sophistry and is not given to trickery, declines to accept such a distorted interpretation. The full text of the clause in question is as follows :

Tiie canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of ■war of all nations observing these rules on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation or its citizens or subjects in respect of the conditionti or charges of traffic or otherwise. Such conditions -and charges of traffic shall be just and'equitable. The British Government promptly informed Mr Taft that'his contention was unacceptable, and offered to submit the point to arbitration. It also informed him that the tolls could not be “jurt and equitable,” as specified by the treaty, if American shipping were exempted, as in that case the shipping of other nations would have to malic up among them tho amount of whicll American shipping was relieved. The United States Government renewed its request for arbitration,, and in the middle of the negotiations came the Presidential election which seated Hr. Woodrow Wilson in the Presidential chair. President Wilson solves the knot by inviting Congress to repeal the obnoxious measure, and it now remains to be seen whether Congress will accede to hisi request. Probably there will be no difficulty with tho House of Representatives. The tug-of-war will come when the Senate, which is invariably stiff-necked in opposing any course suggested by Great Britain, is asked to repeal a measure virtually at tho Tequert of the British Government. The mere fact that tho measure as it stands is held by the President to be an infraction of treaty obligations is hardly likely to weigh very heavily with the Senate, individual members of which have already loudly declared that the United States will do as it likes with its own canal.

Congress iy not a tribunal before which points of international law and the interpretation of treaties can profitably be argued. Too malny influential American interests are deeply involved in this question of the free use of flic canal by American shipping to make it possible for fine legal points to be discussed with tho high impartiality of a tribunal composed of trained jurists. But happily the point at issue is by no means a fine one. President Taft’s contention that the words “all nations” as u.-icd in the Hay-Paunccfote Treaty means “ all nations except the United States” is not a contention likely to be upheld by any tribunal, whether political or juristic, which endeavoured to decide the question entirely apart .from national interest or national bias.

But there is another argument, and on the face of it a more plausible one than that which was put forward by Mr Taft. It is tolerably sura lo be advanced in the Senate to justify the retention of the proposed plan of reimbursing American shipping out of_thc United States Treasury for the tolls charged to them for using the Panama Canal. It is this: “The clause,” say the supporters of a system of Government rebates which would virtually give American shipowners the free use, of the canal, “is exactly the same clause as that under which the Suez Canal is operated. Under the Suez Canal clause Great Britain, Germany, Franco, Japan, and other countries all give postal or commercial subventions to certain' of their steamship lines that use the Suez Canal. Those subventions are in effect rebates of the canal dues, though they are not expressly specified as such.” Tho analogy it) superficially close enough to give a clever advocate an argument that might bo used with some force before a tribunal which is a deliberative body, not a bench of jurists. But, of course, it will not stand the test of analysis. The postal aud comipercial subsidies arc given for special purposes and for special services rendered, and moreover they are not given to all the ships flying . the flags of the different Governments that confer those subsidies, but

only to a definite and limited number of them. President Wilson hai-j evidently brushed aside this contention, as well as Mr Taft's still less tenable one. His vigorous common sense- sees in the cxcinplion of American shipping not only an infringement of a treaty,' but also a plan to benefit certain big moneyed interests in tiie United States. Hence he proposes to sweep it away. Great Britain is by no means the only country that would be prejudiced by the enforcement of the Panama Canal Act, 1912. All countries with merchant shipping to me the canal would he similarly prejudiced. In the present delicate situation in which the Government of the United States finds itself over the Japanese question, it is very undesirable that the United States should provoke the ill-feeling of every nation that possesses a mercantile marine liy enforcing a measure which the President himself declares to he an infringement of the treaty rights which all such nations possess in relation to the United States.