Taft For Canal Arbitration Now.

New York Times 100 years ago today, January 5, 1913:
Assures Peace Forum He Will Take That Course if Diplomatic Negotiations Fail.
HOPES TO REACH SETTLEMENT
But Says There Need Be No Doubt as to What He Will Do if the Issue Is Raised.
SENATE DIVIDED ON SUBJECT
Some Members Hold That Treaty Binds Us to Arbitrate, Others Favor Repeal of Canal Measure.
    President Taft, speaking yesterday afternoon at the luncheon given in his honor, by the International Peace Forum, unequivocally declared his intention of submitting the Panama Canal controversy with Great Britain to arbitration if diplomatic negotiations should fail. The hundred and more diners in the Astor Gallery of the Waldorf-Astoria cheered again and again as he repeated his intention to submit the question to arbitration, even though he were convinced that the United States were going to lose the decision, saying:
    "When the time comes there will be no doubt about what I will do about submitting this question to an impartial tribunal. I am willing to arbitrate with Great Britain as soon as we get down to the point at issue."
    This statement regarding the Panama Canal dispute was brought out by the following pointed passage in a preceding address by Henry Clews, the banker and peace advocate:
    "If before your term expires it is possible to adjust the matter now in dispute in connection with the Panama Canal with Great Britain, by conceding the right to arbitrate that difference, it will be a splendid achievement. It appears to me, as a business man, that under the treaty with Great Britain we are in the wrong, and would most likely be defeated if it could go to The Hague for a decision."
    President Taft was the last speaker, and was introduced by the toastmaster, Max Pam, as "the apostle and harbinger of universal peace." After a cordial demonstration by the diners, who rose to applaud, the President said in part:

Senate's Action Obstructive.
    "I rise to respond to the introduction of your toastmaster with mingled feelings of sorrow and pleasure. This meeting brings back to me the earnest, triumphant feeling that I had in my soul after I had visited almost every State in the Union and urged the confirmation of the treaties which we had made with England and France; and then I lived to find them defeated in the highest legislative body of the world, as some of the members of that body are in the habit of calling it.
    "The defeat was more than a mere destruction of our hope as to the progress that might be made by those treaties, because the vote carried with it a proposition which, if established as our constitutional law, relegates the United States to the rear rank of those Nations which are to help the cause of universal peace. For the proposition is that the Senate of the United States may not consent with the President of the United States to a treaty that shall bind the United States to arbitrate any general class of questions that may arise in the future, but there must always be a condition that the Senate may subsequently, when the facts arise, determine whether in its discretion the United States ought to arbitrate the issue.
    "Now, I say that limitation upon the power of the United States as a Government to bind itself to obligations to meet questions between nations with arbitration is an obstruction not only to the progress of the United States, but to the progress of the world in the matter of peace, for the reason that the nations of the world look to the United States, and properly look to the United States, as a leader in the matter of establishing peace, because we are so fortunately placed between oceans and without troublesome neighbors that we can go on without fear of consequences to establish a condition in which we shall settle every question by reference to an arbitral tribunal. It is because the nations of the world look to us to do this that the announcement of the doctrine by the Senate of the United States that we have no power to make an arrangement of that sort for the future, except as we adopt each particular contract to arbitrate each particular question, presents to those of us who hope for universal peace so great an obstruction.

Must Expect to Lose at Times.
    "Now, the difficulty about arguing peace is that when you get before an audience everybody is in favor of peace. They are all in favor of peace. But when it comes to an election the issue as to international peace does not play any part at all. The peace part of the political platform does not seem to affect anybody but the peace societies. And when you say to the members of the Senate of the United States, 'You are reaching a conclusion in which the people do not stand by you,' they say: 'Well, what of that, such an issue never affected a single vote at the election.' Now, we ought to make it control some votes so that when a Senator rises in his place and says, 'The Senate has no power to make an obligation of this sort to bind our Government to a future policy of arbitration,' we shall say: 'Your constituents differ with you in that regard, and are looking for a Senator who will have a different constitutional view, and who will not regard the sacredness of the Senate of the United States against itself and the Nation to future arbitration as more important than the attribute of full National sovereignty.
    "If we are a Nation at all, we must have power to bind ourselves as a Nation to contracts that will not only uplift nations, but uplift the world; and if we are be limited by the fact that the Senate of the united States cannot confirm and cannot make a contract of that sort, then we have hobbled ourselves and National sovereignty in the possibility of a higher and a more Christian civilization.
    "England made a treaty, France did, and there was no doubt about the confirmation by those Governments of those treaties. If they could safely do it, why could not the United States? In what respect has it higher responsibilities and more valuable privileges to lose than those great nations as between nations? They may be expected to be as careful in the preservation of their sovereignties and what may come by way of damage to them by future contracts, but it remains for the gentlemen who have exalted the Senate above everything in the United States to find in the Constitution something that prevents them from doing what must be done if the cause of universal peace is to prosper.
    "But, they say, 'There may arise, after you have made a contract, some question coming within the described class that you do not want to submit, some question in which your are likely to be beaten, in which you are likely to suffer a great National loss.' Well, you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs. You must expect sometimes to be beaten. A sure thing among gentlemen who bet even is not regarded as the most honorable standard for making bets, and certainly one who would refuse to abide the judgment of a court unless he knew in advance that the Judge was with him is not the kind of a litigant that we are in the habit of welcoming into courts.

Willing to Arbitrate on Canal.
    "And that leads me to a reference that has been made here to the Panama Canal. A good many people are saying, 'Don't arbitrate, because you are going to lose. This is our canal, and while England is making a point of it, England would not fight about it, and therefore why give up when you are not likely to get an arbitration that will be satisfactory to you and your view of the construction.' Now, even if this view were correct as to probability of result, which I need not and do not admit, that is just the time when I am in favor of arbitration. This is the time that tests your faith in that method of settlement.
    "I am willing — and, indeed, I would be ashamed not to be willing — to arbitrate any question with Great Britain in the construction of a treaty when we reach the exact issue which there is between the two nations. There need not be any public doubt on that subject so far as this Administration is concerned. When there is a difference that cannot be reconciled by a negotiation and adjustment then we are entirely willing to submit it to an impartial tribunal.
    "I am hopeful that we may get it either to settlement or to submission before the Administration in which I have the honor to be a dissolving view shall cease; but it may not be, because these international negotiations move slowly. But I am glad to take this opportunity, in this presence, to say that if the time comes there will be no doubt about what I will do in respect to the submission of that question, so far as my power goes, to an impartial tribunal for its settlement, if that is necessary."
    Referring to the arbitration treaties defeated in the Senate, he said:

International Court His Ideal.
    "My own idea was that, if we could make those treaties, they would form the basis for a treaty with every other nation and the united States, and then between other nations than the United States, and finally, by interlocking and intertwining all the treaties, we might easily then come to the settlement of all international questions by a court of arbitration — a permanent, well-established court of arbitration, whose powers would be enforced by the agreement of all nations, and into which any nation might come as a complainant and bring in any other nation as a defendant and compel, that defendant nation to answer to the complaint under the rules of law established for international purposes, and under the rules of law which would necessarily, with such a court, grow into an international code that would embrace all the higher moral rules of Christian civilization.
    "That is the ideal I had. It is the ideal that I still cherish. It is a question that is bound to grow and quietly establish itself, and perhaps that influence will work even upon that rock-ribbed body, the Senate of the United States.
    "And now, my friends, I thank you sincerely for this kindly reception. If my impressions of New York were epitomized they would be largely confined to the banquet halls of the Waldorf and the Astor. It seems to me that you do nothing in Now York but banquet, and I have found no difficulty in conforming to that custom. Every good cause is worthy a banquet. I understand, then, the significance of this ceremony through which we must go before we take up the subject in hand, and I thank you sincerely for the compliment involved in this method of expression."

Shackleton "Peace Poem."
    Besides President Taft and Henry Clews, the other speakers were ex-Representative James E. Watson of Indiana, who denounced the initiative, referendum, and recall, and Sir Ernest Shackleton, the South Polar explorer and Vice President representing the Forum, who said in part:
    "As an explorer I have been called on to do all kinds of things, to open everything from a tine of sardines to a charity ball. Though for peace, I believe in the motto 'Be Prepared.' The following lines with a moral will give you a better idea of conditions in England perhaps than much serious talk:

    As I played golf the other day
         The enemy's army landed:
    I saw our army run away,
         And I saw our fleet was stranded;
    It filled me with such grief and shame
    It nearly put me off my game!

    Herberte Barron, representing the Mexican wing of the Peace Forum, delivered an address of thanks to Mr. Taft for the non-intervention or the United States in Mexico's recent political troubles and presented to the President a large photograph of a committee of prominent Mexicans who, he said, were working for the perpetuation of good feeling between Mexico and the United States.
    Among those seated at the speakers' table, in addition to the speakers were Oscar Straus. Jacob H. Schriff, Henry W. Taft, John Wesley Hill, President of the Forum; William Loeb, Jr., Hamilton Holt, Major T. L. Rhoads, U.S.A.; George Clinton Batcheller, John Hays Hammond, and Charles D. Hilles.
    A reception to President Taft preceded the luncheon.