As a matter of fact, such fortifications are to be constructed, and the plan of the Canal has been adjusted to the requirements of military defence.
There have been, among public men in the United States, two schools of thought on the vital question of the defence of the Canal. One school has held that the best safeguard was to be obtained by leaving the Canal unfortified (as is the case with the Suez Canal), and by the establishment of a general Convention, by which all the Powers, including the United States, should bind themselves to respect the neutrality of the Canal and leave it inviolate. Other public men preferred forts, guardships, and a garrison. The general public in the United States, on the other hand, appears to have unanimously held that an international guarantee would be ineffectual and, moreover, derogatory. As we have seen, the popular view has prevailed, but traces of the antagonistic and incompatible notion of internationalisation remain in the language of the treaties. This is not surprising when we recollect that the first draft of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty was drawn up with a view to neutralisation, according to the precedents afforded by the Suez Canal. Thus we find that Article III. commences with the words: "The United States adopts as the basis of the neutralisation of the Canal ..."; and in Article XVIII. of the treaty with Panama we find: "The Canal when constructed, and the entrances thereto, shall be neutral in perpetuity...."
CHAGRES RIVER NEAR BABACOES.
CHAGRES RIVER NEAR OBISPO.
What then are we to understand by the term "neutral" as applied to the Panama Canal in war time? I suppose the meaning to be that if there be a war to which the United States is not a party, the Canal will be used by belligerents in exactly the same way as was the Suez Canal, e.g., in the Russo-Japanese War, and that the Government of the United States has pledged itself to see that such neutrality is preserved. But if there be a war in which the United States is a party, the circumstances of fortification and operation by the United States in fact render it impossible for the other belligerent to use the Canal, and are intended[3] to have that effect. This being so, the United States is preparing to defend the Canal from attack. Thus it is important to the proper understanding of the undertaking on which the United States Government has embarked that we should clearly realise that the Canal is only neutral in a restricted sense.
The commercial status of the Canal, however, is similar to that of Suez, in that by Article III., § 1, of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty, "The Canal shall be free and open[4] to the vessels ... of all nations ... on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise."
[3] See Report of Canal Commission, 1897, p. 168.
[4] In Article XVIII. of the treaty with Panama this clause is cited, with the addition "and the entrances to the Canal."