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304 THE MARINE REVIEW DEVOTED TO MARINE ENGINEERING, SHIP BUILDING AND ALLIED INDUSTRIES Published Monthly by The Penton Publishing Company 'Penton Building, Cleveland. 'CHICAGO - - - 2 [ - 1328 Monadock Blk- CINCINNATI iis - - - - 503 Mercantile Library Bldg- ~NEW YORK - - - - - - 1115 West Street Bldg. PITTSBURGH - - - - - - 2148-49 Oliver Bldg. | WASHINGTON, D.C. - - - - - - - Hibbs Bldg. 'BIRMINGHAM, ENG. - - : - - Prince Chambers Subscription, $2 delivered free anywhere in the world. Single copies, 20 cents.. Back numbers over three months, 50 cents. Change of advertising copy must reach this office on or before the first of 'each-month. - BE re gat ; oe 3 The Cleveland News Co. will 'supply the trade with THE MARINE REVIEW through the regular channels of the American News Co. European Agents, The International News Company, Breams Building, Chancery Lane, London, E. C., England. Entered at the Post Office at Cleveland, Ohio, as Second Class Matter. - (Copyright 1912, by Penton Publishing Company) ae September, 1912 Panama Canal Bill Practically the last thing that congress did before it adjourned: was to pass the Panama canal bill. The salient features of the bill are that it permits American vessels engaged exclusively in coastwise service to _pass through the canal free of tolls; that it admits to American register foreign-built ships when owned exclusively by Americans and confined exclusively to the foreign trade, and that it forbids vessels owned in whole or in part by the railroads to pass through the canal. In addition, ship building materials neces- sary for the construction or repair of American ves- sels built in the United States are to be admitted free, but there is nothing new in this particular provision, for it has virtually been in effect during the past 15 years and very little advantage has ever been taken Of it. As soon as congress passed the bill, Great Britain protested against it for the second time on the ground that it violated the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. President Taft in signing the bill sent a memorandum to con- gress explaining his attitude. In discussing the Brit- ish protest against the exclusion of American shipping . from the payment of tolls for the use of the canal the president said that the irresistible conclusion to be drawn from the protest is that although the United States owns, controls and has paid for the canal, it is restricted by treaty from aiding its own commerce in -a way that all commercial nations of the world may freely do. : The president pointed out that the rules specified in the article of the treaty which are made the basis THE MARINE REVIEW September, 1912 for the British protest were adopted by the United States as a basis of the neutralizing of 'the canal and for no other purpose. The article he maintains is a declaration of policy by the United States that the canal shall be neutral; that the attitude of this gov- ernment towards the commerce of the world is that all nations will be treated alike and that no discrimina- tion would be made by the United States against any one of them observing the rules adopted by the United States. He maintains that it was not intended to limit or hamper the United States in the exercise of its sovereign power to deal with itss:.own . com- merce, using its own canal in whatsoever manner it saw fit. The president argues that if there is nothing in the Hay-Pauncefote treaty preventing Great Britain "and other nations from extending favors to their shipping using the canal-and if there is nothing that gives the United States any supervision over or right to complain of such action, then the British protest 'leads to the absurd conclusion that this government in constructing the canal, maintaining the canal, and defending the canal, finds itself shorn of its right to deal with its own commerce in 'its own way, while other nations using the. canal in' competition with American commerce enjoy that right and power un- impaired. It is absolutely beyond our power of reasoning to discover what possible basis there can be for the British protest against allowing American ships en- gaged in coastwise service to pass through the canal - free. There are no other ships than American ships engaged in this service. It is a purely domestic prob- lem with which no nation has any concern whatever. However, Great Britain is very much wrought up over the subject if its periodicals, which are publish- ing reams of matter on the subject, are to be believed. To our way of thinking, the only sensible thing we have read on the subject in a British paper is the following from The Nation: "America as a protectionist country has_ stringent navigation laws. -No foreign ship is allowed to en- gage in coastwise traffic between American ports and moreover her courts have given the widest interpreta- tion to the term 'coastwise traffic', All this had obvious bearing on the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. Its provisions for equality of treatment could not apply to vessels engaged in coastwise service and using the canal, because only American vessels in fact were so engaged. If the treaty meant that American ships which enjoy the monopoly under the navigation laws when plying around Cape Horn between the eastern and western coasts of America should lose that mon- opoly when they used the canal, it should certainly have said so, but no one ever suggested that the treaty suspends the operation of the navigation laws when ee trade goes through the canal. "The greater discrimination includes the less and as the navigation laws exclude all but American ships from the coasting trade, the grievance of discrimina-