We have read with no less surprise than pleasure the
leading' ai-ticle in the Times of Friday on the Nicaragua Canal question, based on a letter from their Washington correspondent published in the same issue. -The article, prac- tically accepts the views we have urged for the last two years in regard to the Nicaragua Canal, but which only last summer were denounced by the American correspondent of the Times (without editorial dissent or reproof) as if their adoption involved stupidity, ignorance, and want of, patriotism in equal proportions. Now we learn, in effect (as we have always con- tended), that it'is very much to the interest of this .country that the canal should be made, that we ought to be extremely glad that Ameriea should undertake the work, that all we want is to be able to , use the canal on equal terms With the- rest of the :World, and that it is desirable that the- safe- guarding of the neutrality of the canal should be placed in. strong hands capable of enforcing it. Finally, the, Times Washington correspondent dwells on the internal 'opposition offered to the canal. We have always noted how that opposi- tion tried to inflame the situation between the .two countries for its own ends, and how through our badly managed diplomacy it was made to appear that it was Great Britain, and not the competing interests, that was striving to prevent the canal being made.
