On Tolls for Ships
Passing thru the Panama Canal

Henry George, Jr.

[A speech made before the U.S. House of Representatives, 31 March, 1914]

The House had under consideration the bill (H. R. 14385) to amend section 5 of "An act to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection, and operation of tbe Panama Canal, and tbe sanitation of the Canal Zone," approved August 24. 1912.


Mr. GEORGE. Mr. Speaker, to me the subject of the repeal of the canal tolls act reduces itself to a very simple matter. Sixty-four years ago the United States and Great Britain entered into a treaty for the "constructing and maintaining of a ship communication" between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at Panama "for the benefit of mankind, on equal terms to all." The treaty was signed for the United States by James W. Clayton, Secretary of State, and for Great Britain by the Rt. Hon. Sir Henry Lytton-Bulwer, member of the privy council and ambassador to Washington.

This was a free, voluntary act on the part of both countries, embodying the lofty purpose of promoting commerce between the oceans on the terms of equal rights for all and special privileges to none - surely a proper work for a great and growing democratic Republic dedicated to our principles.

Fifty years later the United States and Great Britain entered into another treaty, known as the Hay-Pauncefote treaty. The purpose of this new treaty was to " remove any objection which might arise out of the convention of April 19, 1850."

Secretary of State John Hay, who signed this treaty for the United States, subsequently reported to the Senate that "the whole theory of the treaty (Hay-Pauncefote) is that the canal is to be entirely American canal. The enormous cost of constructing it is to be borne by the United States alone. When constructed it is to be exclusively the property of the United States and is to be managed and controlled and defended by it."

The central idea of this treaty, like that of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, was that the canal should be open to the use of all nations on terms of entire equality.

Presumably believing that neither of these treaties bound the United State from allowing its own coastwise commerce to enjoy a special privilege in respect to tolls, Congress passed an act exempting our coastwise ships from any charge. But as the President of the United States clearly pointed out in his message to Congress, whatever differences of opinion there may be among Americans as to the justification of this act under the treaty there is only one view of it in the eyes of the rest of the world, which is that by this act of Congress we have broken the treaty.

The world regards us as promising, in the words of the treaty, "the constructing and maintaining" of a ship communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at Panama" for the benefit of mankind on equal terms to all." Surely, at the time of making this treaty we had no thought of exempting our coastwise ships from tolls that should be charged to all other ships, for if we had we could, and probably would have made that exemption a part of the treaty. But, however that may be, the world at large considers such act of exemption now as a breaking of faith and not a devotion of the canal for the benefit of mankind "on equal terms to all."

Of course, if we do not care for the opinion of mankind, it matters not how the world differs with us; but if we seek peace and concord and progress with the nations of the world we must respect their opinions.

We show our greatness in holding to the principle of the original treaty to build and operate the canal "for the benefit of mankind on equal terms to all." And were the cost of the canal to be four thousand instead of four hundred millions, our course should be the same. I shall take joy in voting for the repeal of the act giving free tolls to American coastwise ships, feeling that we shall thereby keep faith with the world, as the world understands that faith to be set out in the treaty - building and operating the canal for the benefit of mankind on "equal terms to all."