122
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
AMERICA AND BRITISH COMMERCE | them, it yet behoves us to recognise that we
IN CHINA.
+
|
3
|
[February 24, 1900.
on behalf of the British Government and require all our vigilance. American trade people no desire to hamper the proposed with China or elsewhere is by no means canal in any way, and the views of the inconsistent with English interests; even Washington Government have in every with the selfish restrictions of an ultra-way been met by the abandonment of these protective policy our commerce has prac portions of the Clayton Bulwer treaty ically benefitted by a better understanding, which prevent the United States from As we pointed out before, the development | undertaking the work as a national con- On the other hand the United of trade with America will in many parti- cern. culars alter the centre of gravity. It will States from the beginning have stated that undoubtedly sender competition in many although the canal is primarily intended staple industries difficult or even impossible, | for the benefit of United States trade, and to while in others it will doubtless afford_op‐ facilitate the movements to and from the portunities of in-lefinite development. Poli- | Pacific of the United States Navy, the sathe tically there is so much in common between | international rules were to be accepted us in the two nations that we can look with cone case of the Suez Canal, and the new placence on a further developmeut of Ameri- | channel is to be open to the ships and war can interests. England has a vast empire, but it is as to a large extent undeveloped, The crisis in South Africa has pointed out possibilities twelve months ago undreamt of, but it has also shown the need of solidarity, and the Empire has a congenial task in We shall be busily working for this. occupied for many years in our own affairs; and we can ree-guise, and in fact have tacitly recognised, that the movement the United States is one so nearly akin to our OWIE that it need excite no useless | jealousies. In China our aims are one, to preserve the autonomy of the Empire, and to gain this end we can afford to keep within the bounds of peaceful rivalry, the close and honourable competition of business. We
we can, it cannot both be first, but work to, ether, so control the contest that any oponent will best he a bad third.
་
THE FAR EAST AND THE NICARAGUA CANAL.
(Daily Press, 17th February.)
we
|
over-
(Daily Press, 20th February.) Whatever opposition the Imperialist policy of the United States has met at home, abroad it has to a remarkable degree enhanced the consideration extended towards the govern- ment at Washington by the other Powers. No great glory, it is true, attaches to the contest now going on in the Philippines, but the fact that the States have proved them selves prepared to undertake a conquest in Asia has shown the spirit now actunting their people, and that the seventy millions of the States are a factor which cannot be neglected in the near future. While then
vessels of the world! This from the tendur the United States may well congratulate themselves and Mr. Hay on the successful
of all previous correspondence published on the subject we take to be the subject matter diplomacy which has induced the Great Powers to sign a self-denying 'guarantee
of the new treaty whose signature was an- with regard to their action in China, it 18
| nounced in telegrams received on the 6th America, of course, receives from none the less true that the real factor in
instant. the canal the first immediate benefit. She the case was the respect which is commanded by seventy millions of people who are de
has jealously kept in her hands, the entire corist carrying trade of the country, but the termined that their voice should be heard.
voyage from New York to San Francisco bus When therefore England was the first of the
been so lengthened and so dangerous that European Powers to sign, there was a per-
practically nearly the whole trade has been suasive influence whi 'n oven so Ishmaelitish
The same remarks apply with a nation as France could scarcely find it in
overland redoubled force to the trade between tho her heart to resist. Still, even with his suggestive background, there is much in
Mexican Gulf and the Pacific Coast which Mr. HAY's handicraft to admire. The gun-
will by the new arrangement be brought into close contiguity instead of having to ranted is not general. The States do not
halt circumnavigate the globe. In the pre- affect to stand before the would as disinter-
sent tempe of the United States the con- ested Guardians of the Open Door;" the attitude is more practical, and takes the
struction of the Nieuragan Canal may be looked upon as a certainty. As an engineor- form of a demand that, come what may, 1:e
ing feat it presents fewer difficult:es (han rights of Americans under the treatus with :
have already in other cases been China are to be guaranteed by the Powers
come, and the difficulties are of nu and American citizens to be placed on the
easy calculable character, consisting mainly same footing as subjets of Powers enjoying fields of influence, with no discrimations as Ir is slightly more than a year ago since of "locks in positions already carefully regards taxes, part dues, tariffs, railways, or the British Government with the general surveyed. There is no diversion of exist in any other formi, The exceptions are assent of the country expressed their wiling water ways, as in the unfortunate Pan- ama proposition, and the country and the noteworthy, consisting of territory ceded, as linguess, if met by the United States, to Hongkong, or purely naval depots, as Port | abrogate the conditions of the Clayton- | climate are altogether more favourable. Arthur; but in all other territory controlled | Bulwer treaty so far as the construction of | The one rawback, and an important one, a Nicaragua Canal was concerned. That is the necessity of having to ascend some by any Power equality must prevail. It will
hundred feet, and to descend on the other, be readily recognised from this that America | treaty conbid th
and various schemes of hydraulic lifts håve now stands in China in an unique position, canal by either power without the coticur- although the Powers have sought to diminish rence of the other, and was more or less been proposed, though at present the ten- The the moral effect by proclaiming for all other concerned with the amoitious designs of the dency seems to be to adopt locks. states perfect equality and a favoured nation French on the isthings of Darien. The possibility that after all the French Com clause to protect themselves. Still the originai circumstances were considerably | pany, who havo been hitherto so unsuccessful United States stand as a nation possessing | altered meanwhile and the conditions which | in their attempt to pierce the isthmus at rights in China, and those rights, it is ensy | remfered the undertaking from one or other | Pavamn, may in the end succc: isfun ad: to see in the present temper of the United | side inadvisable had ceased to exist, and the | ditional incentive to the people of the States further continuance of the treaty had comte to hurry the project, and we may expect States, are not likely to be permitted to
the scheme to be taken up warwily in the remain a dead letter. We saw an instance to be the principal gustacle to the canal of the firm grip that America has taken in | being taken in hand. It had neen intended present session of congress, and pushed to a the Far East in the arrangements shout the | that the ennal should be made by a private practical commencement before President MACKINLEY'S term of office expires. In Nicaragua Canal to which we referred the company under the auspices of the two other day.
The matter of a canal through | Governments, but the enormous expense, fact the canal will probably be made one of planks' in the coming presdeutin- the Isthmus, whether Panama or Nicaragua | estimated at the outset at least a hundred | the
Under the circumstances million dollars, and the possibility that | elestion. should eventually be selected, is practically left in the hands of the United States. It eventually this would probably be consider behoves us as Englishmen to face the pro- blem of the new conditious betimes. The will no longer be a question between the|ably exceeded, acted as a damper, and it nations. England has formally withdrawn, | became clearer day by day that the scheme Suez Canal practically revolutionised the and France since the collapse of De Lesseps's was practically beyond the limits of private trade of the world, and England as the beat scheme has been practically out of the enterprise. At all events a project was prepared was the first to reap the benefit. running. The Washington Government is brought before Congress in January, 1899, As times advanced other nations have entered pledged to the country at large, and no to enable the Government itself to under- into the game, and have changed consider leader of either of the two great parties take the work in the event of satisfactory ably the centre of commercial activity. could afford to let the project lapse. Simi- arrangements being come to with the British | The opening of the cnual hus acted as an larly, however distarteful to the President | Government. Pending, however, the con- incentive to the trade of south. Europe and may be the opening of Chua, it ha- passed clusion of those arrangements a committee | restored the Mediterranean to its position the limits of party and has been taken up was appointed, the com osition of which as the great highway of commerce, by the people at large, and Mr. Hay but was however distasteful to the people in the ↑ least an equal degree the opening of a voices the opinion of the country in his States, who have all through professed their caual from the Gulf of Mexic to the Pacific Ocean must revolutionise the trade demand for the recognition of the claim of suspicion, that the pioneer company was
o East Asia. The present trade between the United States to equal rights. That more disposed to namper than to forwird these new developments cannot fail to have the proposed enterprise, and who believe¦ Europe and China and Japan is esentially acasting one, and the freight of the an inportant bearing ou British trade and that English financiers are opposed to the British influence are facts not to be denied, scheme as injurious to the interests of the vessels engaged are largely augmented by and however complacently we may agree to1Suez Canal,” However that may be there is contingents from intermedinte ports. The
constraction of such
n
|
|
it
To at
į