American Follies Take Long to Unravel

The Panama Canal opened more than a century ago, in 1914.

- SHINICHI KITAOKA

Prior to its opening, a controversy arose between Great Britain and the United States over the tolls for the canal.

The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty signed by the two countries in 1901 had a clause promising that the tolls would not discriminate by nationality, but the U.S. Congress created a new system to make domestic shipping fares lower than those for international shipping. Its aim was to offer significantly reduced canal tolls to U.S. vessels.

The system would define U.S. ships sailing from the nation's east coast to the west coast, for example, as being domestic shipping, making them eligible for discounted tolls. The United States maintained that the measure was not discrimination but a distinction between domestic and international shipping. It was clearly discriminatory, however, since the discount was effectively only available to U.S. ships.

The United Kingdom strongly protested this sophistry. The U.K. ambassador to Washington at the time was James Bryce (1838-1922), whose book titled "The American Commonwealth" had been highly praised, especially in the United States, alongside French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville's "De la democratie en Amerique" (Democracy in America). Despite Bryce's already advanced age, London appointed him to the ambassadorial post because friendly relations with the United States were of critical importance for the United Kingdom, due to its conflict with Germany.

The U.S. Congress eventually voted the bill on discounted canal tolls into law. Around that time, younger Japanese diplomat Kijuro Shidehara, who later served as Japan's ambassador to the United States (1919-22), foreign minister (1924-27, 1929-31) and as prime minister (1945-46), met Bryce and asked what the United Kingdom would do now about the issue of the tolls. The British envoy said his country would do nothing.