If there be a war in 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--for example, in the Russo-Japanese War--and 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 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 realize that the canal is only neutral in a restricted sense.[4] As a matter of fact the status of the Panama Canal lies somewhere between neutralization and American control. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty also lays down the rules which are to be observed by the ships of war of a belligerent using the canal and the waters adjacent to the canal--that is, within three marine miles of either end. They are similar to those in force at Suez, and need not be repeated here. FOOTNOTES: [3] Appendix i. [4] "The Panama Canal and its Makers," pp. 42, 43. CHAPTER VI. THE UNITED STATES AND COLOMBIA. Those citizens of the United States who thought that with the disappearance of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty all the difficulties in the way of obtaining a canal of their own had also disappeared were doomed to a severe disappointment. They had not reckoned with a South American republic on the verge of bankruptcy and suddenly presented with a glorious opportunity to fill its empty treasury. Two preliminaries were necessary before the United States could settle down at the isthmus of Panama to the work of canal construction. They had to purchase the concession, the unfinished works and the other assets of the New Panama Company, at as reasonable a price as they could obtain; and, secondly, it was necessary to conclude a treaty with Colombia, securing to the United States on satisfactory terms the perpetual control of a strip of territory on the isthmus from sea to sea within which the canal could be constructed.