"The American Government has published a letter, forwarded lby Mr.
Blaine on June 24th to Mr. Lowell, the American Minister in London, about the Panama Canal. In this letter, Pre5ident Garfield protests against the European Governments combining to guarantee the neutrality of any canal to be con- structed throagh the Isthmus ol.Panama; declares that the canal will as regards the United States have "a domestic function," and that, consequently, the works must be protected by the Union alone ; and intimates that any other view will be regarded "as an indication of unfriendly feeling." In plain English, the Washington Government says that the canal will be the main highway between the Atlantic and Pacific, and that it means, therefore, to obtain a sovereign control over the passage, and to shut it when it is at war. The answer to that is that the claim in theory is inadmissible, and that Washington might just as well demand exclusive rights in the Straits of Magellan ; but that the dispute is not worth a quarrel, and that the Union should therefore reconcile all claims by cutting the canal for itself. If America cuts the canal and owns it, and tales toll of passing ships, nobody can object to her shutting it when she thinks it convenient.
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