But when to the actual fortification of the canal is added the provision of a strong advanced base near each entrance, this criticism falls to the ground. Between those advanced bases would be "American water," and on either base a portion of the American Fleet could hold an enemy in check until the mobilisation of the whole Fleet.
The world must make up its mind to the fact that the Panama Canal is intended by the United States as a means of securing her dominance in the Pacific, without leaving her Atlantic coast too bare of protection in the event of a great war. Great Britain is the only Power with any shadow of a claim to object, and her claim would be founded on treaties and arrangements which she has either abrogated or allowed to fall into oblivion. Probably it will never be put forward. By a course of negotiation, which, for steadiness of purpose and complete concealment of that purpose until the right time came for disclosure, might be a pattern to the most effective fighting despotism, the American democracy has surmounted all obstacles of diplomacy in Panama just as the obstacles of disease and distance were surmounted. The reluctance of a disorderly sister Republic to grant the territory for the canal was overcome by adding a beneficent one to its numerous useless revolutions. The jealousy of Europe was first soothed and ultimately defied. It is safe to venture the opinion that the reluctance of Ecuador to part with the Galapagos will also be overcome. Then from New York to Pekin will stretch a series of American naval bases—Cuba, Panama, the Galapagos, Hawaii, the Philippines.
The intention, announced on some authority, of the United States to use the canal in times of peace as a tariff weapon for the furthering of American trade may arouse some protest, but it is difficult to see how such a protest can have any effect. The United States will be able to reply that it is her canal, bought with her own money, and that it is her right, therefore, to do with it as she pleases. In a special message to Congress at the end of 1911, Mr Taft urged the necessity for the establishment of preferential rates for American shipping passing through the Panama Canal. He cited the practice of foreign Governments in subsidising their merchant vessels, and declared that an equivalent remission of canal tolls in favour of American commerce could not be held to be discrimination. The message went on: "Mr Taft does not believe that it would be the best policy wholly to remit the tolls for domestic commerce for reasons purely fiscal. He desires to make the canal sufficiently profitable to meet the debt amassed for its construction, and to pay the interest upon it. On the other hand, he wishes to encourage American commerce between the Atlantic and the Pacific, especially in so far as it will insure the effectiveness of the canal as a competitor with the trans-Continental railways." The President concluded, therefore, that some experimentation in tolls would be necessary before rates could be adjusted properly, or the burden which American shipping could equitably bear could be definitely ascertained. He hinted at the desirability of entrusting such experimentation to the executive rather than to the legislative branch of the Government.
In plain language, the United States Government asked for a free hand to shape rates for the use of the Panama Canal so that American shipping interests could be promoted. The shipping affected would not be merely from one American port to another, but between American and foreign countries. By the present shipping laws American "coastal trade" i.e. trade between one American port and another, even if one of the ports be Manila or Honolulu, is closely safeguarded for American bottoms by a rigid system of Protection.
A Daily Telegraph correspondent, writing from New York to London at the time of Mr President Taft's message, described the trend of American public opinion which was shown by the changing of the registry of the Red Star liners Kroonland and Finland from Belgian to American. "This morning Captain Bradshaw, an American, assumed command, and the ceremony of hauling down the foreign flag and hoisting the Stars and Stripes took place. The reasons for the change are not announced, but it is said that the approaching completion of the Panama Canal has something to do with it, and shipping circles here declare that the change of registry presages the entry of the Kroonland and her sister ship the Finland into the American coast trade between Pacific and Atlantic ports, via the Panama Canal. It is expected that a heavy subsidy will be given to American steamships by the United States Government carrying mails from the Atlantic to the Pacific via Panama, and it is generally believed that the owners of the Kroonland and the Finland have this in mind."
Clearly the United States, having expended £70,000,000 directly, and a great deal indirectly, on the Panama Canal, intends to put it to some profitable use, both in war time and in peace time. Naval supremacy in the Pacific in war time, industrial supremacy in peace time—those are the benefits which she expects to derive.