States imposes,* but to-day the tables have turned, and there is more law and order even in Honduras than in unfortunate Mexico. While President Madero is being held generally accountable for the breakdown of the new government, in my opinion no one is so clearly responsible for the deplorable situation as is the exdictator. Don Porfirio Diaz ruled the republic for forty years with a rod of iron, and with no thought of the days or of the men, and of their education, that were to come after him. Politically and in all matters touching upon self-government, he left his people, after forty years of repressive government, as backward and incompetent as when, with a handful of bandits and Indians, he imposed upon them his régime of personal despotism.

The apparent failure of the Madero government, resting upon the law and not upon bayonets, is but another proof and illustration of how selfishly Diaz ruled Mexico. He might have founded a great commonwealth, but he chose to be a dictator, and to rule tyrannically, upheld by convict soldiers. While his unfortunate country seems destined to reap the whirlwind which he sowed so lightheartedly, I do not think that General Diaz will escape his responsibility in history. The backward steps taken in Mexico during the last eighteen months have been attended by similar discouraging movements in several of the Central American States. The failure of the

Senate to ratify the treaties with Nicaragua and with Honduras, providing for a fiscal arrangement similar in plan and scope to our Santo Domingo protocol, is certainly discouraging to the conservative and respectable fractions of society in these unfortunate coun*See Appendix L, page 475.

tries. Both republics are over their head and heels in debt, and their credit is nil without the surety, under certain restrictions, of the United States Government. The foreign, almost exclusively foreign, bondholders are naturally urging their governments to take active steps to protect their long-neglected interests, and the consequences cannot be other than vexatious to all concerned.

Mr. Root, then Secretary of State, in a speech made in 1904 before the New England Society in New York, seemed to have in view the very case that is before us. He said:

"And if we are to maintain this doctrine [the declaration of Monroe], which is vital to our national life and safety, at the same time when we say to the other powers of the world, 'You shall not push your remedies for wrong against these republics to the point of occupying their territory,' we are bound to say that, whenever the wrong cannot be otherwise redressed, we ourselves will see that it is redressed."

To-day we are not allowing the foreign bondholders to collect their just dues. Our Senate refuses to allow Nicaragua and Honduras to borrow money in the only way they can-and apparently everything must go on as before. It is certainly a distressing situation, and a complete breakdown of civilisation, which, let us hope, is only temporary, on this continent, where, as Mr. Olney said, "the United States is practically sovereign, and its fiat is law."

In pushing the scheme for a union of the five Central American republics, and this was evidently the main purpose of his recent tour in the Caribbean, Mr. Knox is doing with characteristic energy and intelligence excellent educational work. However, he is engaged on

a propaganda which is not at all likely to bear fruit at an early day.

Undoubtedly the Central American union affords a solution for many of the difficulties and the disadvantages from which the separate and isolated republics are suffering, but the union or confederation will be difficult to obtain; and, as the history of previous attempts clearly demonstrates, it will be still more difficult to maintain and uphold, once it is formed. The unionists are taking away from a large and most influential class, if not the most highly esteemed in the five republics, namely, the professional politicians, their means of livelihood without "degrading " labour, and it is not at all likely that this class will allow such a good thing as is their present profession to slip through their fingers without a struggle. The five republics were united from 1838 to 1841. A confederation was again proposed in 1889, but the congresses of Costa Rica and Nicaragua held back, and prevented its realisation. However, these very countries, together with Salvador, in 1895 formed a union which survived until 1899.

In the face of these failures, which must have proved discouraging, it is, nevertheless, certain that the partisans of the union have increased both in numbers and in influence, and that much pioneer work has been accomplished in paving the way and removing the difficulties which lie in the path of a more perfect union. Courts of justice have been created for the purpose of unifying and codifying the laws in use, and an international bureau has been founded to develop the interests, commercial and industrial, which the five republics have in common. This bureau holds annual re

unions in one or the other of the capitals, at which questions of common interest, such as the development of agriculture, the preservation of peace, monetary questions, and tariffs are freely discussed.

This propaganda has been encouraged by every recent administration in Washington, and certainly great practical results have been obtained by the institution of the High Court of Justice in Central America, which on several occasions has prevented armed conflicts between the states which are so given to civil strife. We might conclude that the attitude of the United States upon this question, the tireless efforts which have been made by successive administrations to strengthen the party of the Central American union, would have silenced the partisans of Zelaya and other fire-eaters, who pretend to see in our every move a more or less veiled attempt at annexation, for it is certain that a united Central America would develop into an interesting buffer state between North and South America, and would most certainly prove more difficult to absorb than the weak and isolated republics which are to-day engaged in impoverishing one another by more or less open warfare. However, this recognition of our unselfishness is not general, and it will probably be a matter of slow growth. Most Central American statesmen with whom I have conversed on the subject have, with more or less frankness, admitted that we could best help the cause of the Central American union and the possibility of peace and good government which it presents, by abstaining from all manifestations of preference, much less of ardent partisanship in the matter.*

*For recent definition of our Central American policy, see Appendix L, page 475.

CHAPTER XVII

THE CONQUEST OF THE ISTHMUS

THE Isthmus of Panama * runs nearly east and west, and the canal traverses it from Colon on the north to Panama on the south, in a general direction from northwest to southeast, the Pacific terminus being twenty-two miles east of the Atlantic entrance.

The greatest difficulty of the canal project now nearing completion was and is the control and disposal of the waters of the Chagres River, and its many tributaries. The Chagres runs a circuitous serpentine course, backwards and forwards across the Isthmus from its source in the San Blas Mountains, emptying into the Caribbean Sea a mile or two west of Limon Bay. One of the merits claimed for the canal plan as finally adopted is that it converts what was an obstacle into the motive power of the colossal project, for without the formerly greatly feared floods of the Chagres the canal would simply be a dry ditch, useless for navigation.

The American canal consists of a sea-level entrance channel from Limon Bay to Gatun, about seven miles. long, forty-one feet deep at mean tide, and with a bottom width of five hundred feet. At Gatun the canal becomes a high-level canal, from which it takes its name. Here a mammoth dam has been constructed across the valley by which the waters of the Chagres

*For text of treaty with the Republic of Panama and commercial statistics, see Appendix J, page 460.