Senator Morgan of Alabama, the most persistent advocate of legislation looking to the construction of the Nicaragua canal, made a speech in the Senate on March 6, on his resolution to abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, in which he insisted on the absolute right of the United States to annul the treaty and build the canal without consulting Great Britain.
The world's interest was centred in the passage of the army bill in the United States Senate and House of Representatives last week, not on account of the bill itself, but on account of two amendments that were attached to it; one providing for a civil government to be established in the Philippines, and the other for establishing a protectorate over Cuba.
Russia has imposed a thirty per cent additional tariff on American imports in retaliation for an increase made by the United States in the tariff on Russian sugar.
The appropriation bills that have passed Congress and those that are still pending call for unprecedented sums of money, and it seemed likely that the present Congress would make a record for extravagance before its adjournment on March 4, that would astonish the world.
"A lot of rumpus is being made," said a retired commodore to-day, "about the army suffering all sorts of things by the abolition of the canteen, and predictions are frequent that troubles will be encountered in securing enlistments because it is no longer to exist.
Matthew Stanley Quay, after a short absence from the United States Senate, owing to the success of the reform forces in creating a deadlock at the last session of the Pennsylvania Legislature, was again elected last week in spite of determined and influential opposition in his own party, and the known coldness of the national administration toward him.
The Forward Company of London, which was granted exclusive rights for a term of thirty years from 1897 to control navigation on the San Juan River, by a concession of the Nicaraguan Congress, has filed a protest with the British Government against the acceptance of the Hay-Pauncefote treaty.
