Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/52

 The Recognition of Panama and Its Results. dards. The puppet State of Panama, with a population no larger than Milwaukee's, itself a hotbed of revolution, cannot stand alone. We must support it and be responsible for its conduct. As already suggested, there are some who see nothing out of the way in such reasoning as this, and in the conclusions resulting. There are others who have regard still for national honor, patience, obedience to law; who fear dangerous precedents; who would keep faith even with weak and treacherous neighbors. But, such men will be asked, would you permit any Stale on academic grounds of equality and law to hinder this country from constructing a canal already too long de layed? The answer is twofold. National reputa tion is more valuable than national progress. From a purely material standpoint, what our country may gain in ease of communication it may more than offset by awakening ролиcal mistrust. And the second answer is, that no such choice as is contended was forced; that the President's way was bad diplomacy; that with a little more patience and a little more management, all that the United States has at heart could probably have been won. Fifty-three political disturbances, great and small, in Colombia are enumerated in the message, and the railway protected through out. Why not endure a fifty-fourth? Why not have put down the Panama revolution as threatening the railway—an undoubted treaty right—instead of aiding it, first get ting Colombia's pledge to deal fairly with a new treaty? We might have lost a year, but we should have saved our character and had a real State to deal with. This suggests the second of the inquiries proposed at the outset. If our recognition of Panama was warranted neither by law nor by treaty, is it any the less a sovereign State for all that? And if a sovereign State,

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but under a Junta, are its contracts valid? To the first part of this question the reply must be, that premature or wrongful recog nition may violate the rights of the paren: State, but nevertheless accomplishes its object. For recognition simply means, that, so far as the recognizing State is con cerned, the new body is to be allowed to exercise towards it .the rights of statehood. If unwarranted, it may be a cause of war with the parent, but does not affect third parties. They take their own line. They grant or withhold recognition at their own will. And so when A says that B's colony, C, is independent, A grants that colony ex ternal sovereignty as to A itself only, and takes the consequences. But unfortunately, under our system of international law, a powerful wrongdoer cannot be brought to book by a feeble suf ferer. Thus wrongful recognition may be a wrong without a penalty. To give a single illustration: the recogni tion by the United States of the new govern ment in Hawaii, which ousted the monarchy in 1894, was likewise premature. But the new State stayed independent and sover eign nevertheless; exchanged ministers with this country; after its government was es tablished, made a treaty with this country; and other powers gradually followed suit, There the injury was to a ruling family and irremediable, not to a parent State retain ing its right of coercion. The new State arose within the old limits, not by separation. But the principle involved in recognition is the same, that thereby a new sovereignty exists. And now our final inquiry. Is our canal treaty, made with Panama under the Junta, valid, and title to property leased or ceded by it, good? The rules which govern the validity of treaties relate to the State's capacity to con tract, to the negotiating agents, to the object of the treaty, and its ratification.