Panama Canal Tolls.

New York Times 100 years ago today, April 5, 1913:
    The American Association for International Conciliation petitions Congress for the settlement of the difference with England regarding Panama Canal tolls in either of three ways. Nobody would object to agreement upon the matter, and not many who have no intrinsic interest in the matter object to arbitration. The third method is a novelty. It proposes the repeal of the discrimination in favor of the coastwise marine and the payment instead of a direct subsidy. The difference with England would disappear because England adopts that we have a right to pay subsidies if we like. But this would pacify England at the cost of an affront to our domestic monopolists. They never would assent to the payment of a subsidy equivalent to their present privileges because Americans would refuse to pay it after its annual amount was disclosed. For that proposal there is no prospect of adoption.
    The friends of the monopoly privilege to charge dear freights have another plan to preserve it. The trouble is that it is impracticable for the same fault of excess of candor which Impedes the plan of the society with the long name. If the plan to discriminate in favor of "our" marine is obstructed by a treaty the obvious escape from the dilemma is to denounce the treaty. It might be dishonorable to break the treaty, but it is all right to throw it out of the State Department window. The merit of this plan is that it allows us to keep the goods we bought, and yet relieves us from the necessity of paying the price we promised. To make the job thorough Senator Chamberlain proposes to denounce both the Hay-Pauncefote treaty and the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. We did not dare to repudiate the latter treaty when we substituted for it the former, but there are those who are bold enough to denounce both together.
    Since they are so very bold it is a mystery why they stop at defrauding England by tearing off the Nation's signature. Why not let the treaties stand and insult England as well as defraud her? That has all the merits attaching to the topnotch of international boorishness, and long would remain the classic example of what nations ought to avoid who respect themselves as well as their neighbors. The proposal is attractive in itself to some, and has the reinforcement of those who manage "our " marine for their personal profit. There are merits about both these new plans, but the latter is the better because it is the worse, and needs so little explanation to those who profit by running ships under monopoly conditions.