Canal Bill Signed; Taft Defends It.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 25, 1912:

And Asks Congress to Affirm That We Don't Consider It Violates the Treaty.

    WASHINGTON,. Aug. 24.— President Taft signed the Panama Canal bill at 7:10 o'clock to-night, afterward sending to Congress a memorandum suggesting the advisability of the passage of a resolution, which would declare that this measure was not considered by this Government a violation of the treaty provisions regarding the canal.
    In discussing, the British protest against the exemption of American shipping from the payment or tolls for the use of the canal, Mr. Taft says the irresistible conclusion to be drawn from it 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 the way that all other nations of the world may freely do.
    "In view of the fact," Mr. Taft continues, "that the Panama Canal is being constructed by the United States wholly at its own cost, upon territory ceded to it by the Republic of Panama for that purpose, and that, unless it has restricted itself, the United States enjoys absolute rights of ownership and control, including the right to allow its own commerce the use of the canal upon such terms as it sees fit, the sole question is: Has the United States (by the terms of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty) deprived itself of the exercise of the right to pass its own commerce free or to remit tolls collected for the use of the canal?"
    The President points out that the rules specified in the article of the treaty which is made the basis for the British protest were adopted by the United States as the basis of the neutralizing of the canal and for no other, purpose. This article, he further says, "is a declaration of policy by the United States that the canal shall be neutral; that the attitude of this Government toward the commerce of the world is that all nations will be treated alike, and that no discrimination would be made by the United States against any one of them observing the rules adopted by the United States.
    "In other words, it was a conditional favored-nation treatment, the measure of which, in the absence of express stipulation to that effect, is not what the country gives to its own Nationals, but the treatment it extends to other nations.
    "Thus, it is seen that the rules are but the basis of neutralization intended to effect the neutrality which the United States was willing should be the character of the canal and not intended to limit or hamper the United States in the exercise of its sovereign power to deal with its own commerce 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 the 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 all other nations using the canal in competition with American commerce enjoy that right and power unimpaired.
    "The British protest, therefore, is a proposal to read into the treaty a surrender by the United States of its right to regulate its own commerce in its own way and by its own method, a right which neither Great Britain herself nor any other nation that may use the canal has surrendered or proposes to surrender."
    In his memorandum the President dissents from the view that permission to register foreign built vessels as vessels of the United States for foreign trade and the admission without duty of ships materials will interfere with the shipbuilding interests of the United States. He approves the amendment of the Inter-State Commerce act. whereby railroad companies are forbidden to own or control ships operated through the canal.
    He also approves the provision which prevents the owner of any steamship who is guilty of violating the anti-trust law from using the canal.
    The President presented the pen with which he signed the Canal bill to William D. Wheeler of San Francisco.
    After notification to the House to-night that President Taft had signed the Panama bill, Representative Sims of Tennessee, ranking member of the House Inter-State Commerce Committee, introduced a bill repealing the provision of the law providing for free tolls of American ships engaged in the coastwise trade.
    Mr. Sims explained that the bill had the indorsement of the majority of the committee and was intended to avoid threatening international complications over the free tolls proposition. It will be acted upon among the first bills taken up when Congress reconvenes in December.