Fortification of the Panama Canal

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-301
Author(s):  
Richard Olney
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The United States ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Military Police

In the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850 the United States and Great Britain agreed that neither would ever erect or maintain any fortifications commanding the canal or the vicinity thereof. The Hay-Paunceforte treaty of 5 February, 1900, by clause 7, stipulated as follows: No fortifications shall be erected commanding the canal or the waters adjacent. The United States, however, shall be at liberty to maintain such military police along the canal as may be necessary to protect it against lawlessness and disorder.

The Panama Canal Act and the British Protest

1913 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Holladay Latané
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The United States ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
The Past

The Panama Canal project has its roots deep in the past. The diplomatic complications presented by the enterprise have been as difficult to overcome as the engineering obstacles. Now that the dream of ages is about to become a reality, certain of our newspapers, impressed with the magnitude of the task which the United States has undertaken and carried well-nigh to completion, are asking impatiently, what rights has Great Britain in the canal, why should she venture to dictate what use we shall make of our own property? Merely to say that England has rights under the Hay-Pauncefote treaty does not appear to satisfy these critics. They ask again, why did the United States ever give England any voice at all in the matter? In order to answer this question we have to go back to the middle of the last century when the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was negotiated and see what the relative positions of the United States and England with respect to the isthmus were at that time.

The Canal Fortifications and the Treaty

1911 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 620-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crammond Kennedy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Canal Zone ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Territorial Rights

Connected as it is with the progress of the present phenomenal movement for international peace, the question whether the Panama Canal should be permanently fortified as part of its construction and before it is opened to the commerce of the world, is of the highest importance; and for this reason the views and conclusions of the commissioners who considered the subject under authority of Congress in 1899–1901, when negotiations were in progress between the United States and Great Britain for a new agreement to take the place of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, are of the gravest public interest and are worthy of the most considerate attention. It was not until November, 1903, that the Isthmian Canal Zone came under “ the perpetual control ” of the United States by the treaty of the 18th of that month with the new-born Republic of Panama; but, for some years prior, the United States had been considering the acquisition of a strip of territory in the Isthmus, and the construction of a waterway between the two oceans, on its own responsibility, at its own cost, and under its own control. It was from this new point of view that the Canal Commission of 1899–1901, of which the late Admiral Walker was president, made its investigations and report; and it was to open the way to the accomplishment of this enterprise without a violation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty and with the consent of Great Britain, whose interests in the physical union of the Atlantic and Pacific were second only to those of the United States, that the negotiations then pending between the two governments had been commenced and were subsequently carried on until they resulted in the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which was signed on November 18, 1901, proclaimed February 22, 1902, and is now in force. It antedated by some months the passage of “ the Spooner bill,” which provided for the purchase of the rights and property of the New Panama Canal Company (De Lesseps’ successor in France) and for the acquisition of the necessary territorial rights from Colombia, or, failing that, from Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

The Rise of the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
The United States ◽  
Western Hemisphere ◽  
Panama Canal ◽  
Great Power ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
The U.S

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the United States had emerged as a substantial great power. Despite a century of animosity, the United States and Great Britain were able to reconcile at this time. This chapter reviews the process by which this reconciliation took place, including through three crises that defined the terms of their relationship in the western hemisphere—the Venezuela boundary crisis, the Panama Canal crisis, and the Canadian border crisis. In addition, by accepting a U.S. presence in East Asia, Britain signalled its comfort with the arrival of the U.S. as a great power. British confidence in U.S. long-term intentions, not any judgment about U.S. capabilities, were key to Anglo-American friendship.

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