The newspapers on Tuesday contained President Roose- velt's Message to
Congress, this year a very lengthy Message, in which be reviews every department of politics. The chief interest naturally centres on the passages dealing with the Alaskan award and Panama. On the first question the tone of the Message is all that could be desired, and there is nothing in it to hurt Canadian feeling in the smallest degree. On the Panama question the President enumerates the terms of the Treaty with the new Panama Government providing for the making of a canal across the Isthmus, and defends the action of his Government in the recent Central American troubles. It was not a question of alternative routes, for that had been irrevocably settled, but whether there should be a canal at all. The Colombian Government repudiated the recent Treaty, and the people of Panama, who had long been discontented and were closely interested in the canal, rose as one man. Colombia being incapable of keeping order on the Isthmus, and refusing to recognise her treaty obligations, the plain duty of the United States was to recognise a Govern- ment which could do both. Her Government had no com- plicity in the Revolution; it merely bided its time and carried out its treaty obligations with the Power which was de facto predominant. We trust that President -Roosevelt's frank
and statesmanlike declaration will put an end to the idle accusations against American diplomacy.
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