Canal Toll Before Knox.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 25, 1912:
British Government May With hold its Protest Till Senate Debate Is Over.
WOULD ABROGATE TREATY
Hannis Taylor Declares International Law Would Justify It — Quotes Russian Action as a Precedent.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 24.— Secretary Knox returned to Washington from Valley Forge, his Summer home, this afternoon, and to-morrow will have a conference with Mitchell Inness, the Charge' d'Affaires of the British Embassy, in regard to the protest made by the British Government against the bill pending in Congress in regard to free tolls for American vessels passing through the Panama Canal.
    There was no information to be had to-day as to when the protest would finally be received. Broadly the contention of the British Government is already before this Government. Mr. Innes and the counsel for the State Department, Mr. Anderson, have discussed the matter at length and have a full understanding of the question. But it is believed that the British Foreign Office has no desire to do anything to interrupt the debate that is now running in the Senate on the question of American jurisdiction over the canal.
    The feeling around the State Department unmistakably favors the British contention that the Hay-Pauncefote treaty permanently secures the entire equality of the use of the Canal to the vessels of all nations and the neutrality of the Canal in war. Secretary Knox is averse to taking any position that would put this Government in the attitude of repudiating its international obligations and has distinctly declared himself opposed to the granting of rebates to American ships. At the same time he realizes that by subsidies foreign nations will place our shipping at a disadvantage and he desires that every possible protection shall be given to American ship owners.
    Hannis Taylor, former Minister to Spain and an international lawyer of high standing, in a letter to-day declares for the straightforward abrogation of the Hay-Fauncefote treaty as the only practical and honorable course to be taken, his ground being that the state of facts existing when the treaty was written does not now continue, and that as the United States has since acquired sovereignty over the Canal Zone it is in a position to denounce the treaty.
    "There is no room for hairsplitting on that point," writes Mr. Taylor. "Within the Canal Zone the United States is sovereign for all the purposes of international law. Under that law it is well settled that a treaty becomes voidable, not void, whenever a change has taken place in the fundamental conditions existing at the time it was made."
    The writer quotes Hall, an English authority in international law, in support of his contention, and then refers to Russia's repudiation in 1870 of certain portions of the Treaty of Paris, relating to the Black Sea, contending that it set a precedent upon which the United States may act. In conclusion Mr. Taylor says:
    "We must take the firm stand under the well defined principle of international law, as punctuated by the Russian precedent of 1870, that after there has been an essential change in the conditions existing at the time the treaty was made, it becomes voidable. In that way we can justly lift the question out of the domain of international arbitration, where we could never obtain a fair hearing, into the domain of diplomatic negotiation with Great Britain, where we will be sure to receive fair and friendly consideration.