Hague For Canal Dispute.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 12, 1912:
London Times Says Protest Will Be Strong and That Solution Offered.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Monday, Aug. 12.— In an editorial on the Panama Canal bill, The Times says this morning:
    "The assumption made in Washington that if and when the bill is signed we shall have something more to say upon it is, of course, correct. We shall most certainly protest against it if it remains in its present shape or if it encroaches in any way on what we deem our plain treaty rights. We may or may not be joined by others in that protest, but it will assuredly be made.
    "It will, of course, be quite friendly in substance, spirit, and manner, as was the communication already made to Secretary Knox, but it will also he firm.
    "The interests involved are too great and the rights, as we conceive, infringed are too plain for us to refrain from asserting them as strongly as the forms of diplomatic intercourse with a friendly nation will allow. There can be no mistake upon that head or upon the degree of support which the Government will receive from the whole Nation and the whole Empire in making the protest.
    "Should diplomacy fall to solve the controversy — a contingency we can hardly think probable — confident in the goodness of our cause, we shall unhesitatingly propose to submit the dispute to the arbitration of The Hague. It has already been suggested that the United States Government, which has hitherto prided itself upon being the foremost champion of arbitration, may refuse to go to arbitration in its own case. That is an eventuality which we refuse to contemplate unless and until it becomes imminent."
    The Times correspondent in Paris cables:
    "The Temps calls attention to the protests of leading American newspapers against the action of the Senate in the matter of the Panama Canal.
    "While disclaiming any desire to take part in the controversy before the United States Government comes to a definite decision, the Temps considers that perhaps the United States would serve its own commercial interests better if it respected more scrupulously its legal engagements, and makes the worldly wise observation:
    " 'La fidelite a la parole donnee est souvent une habilete' " ["Keeping one's word is often sagacity."]