"That nothing contained in the Act, entitled 'An Act to provide for the opening, maintenance, protection, and operation of the Panama Canal, and the sanitation and government of the Canal zone,' shall be deemed to repeal any provision of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty or to affect the judicial construction thereof, and in any wise to impair any rights or privileges which have been or may be acquired by any foreign nation under the treaties of the United States relative to tolls or other charges for the passage of vessels through the Panama Canal, and that when any alien ... considers that the charging of tolls ... pursuant to the provisions of this Act violates in any way such treaty rights or privileges such alien shall have the right to bring an action against the United States for redress of the injury which he considers himself to have suffered; and the District Courts of the United States are hereby given jurisdiction to hear and determine such cases, to decree their appropriate relief, and from decision of such District Courts there shall be an appeal by either party to the action of the Supreme Court of the United States." Congress, however, has not given effect to the suggestion of the President, and the American Courts have not, therefore, the opportunity of giving a judicial interpretation to the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty and of deciding the question whether or no through the Panama Canal Act has arisen a conflict between American Municipal Law and International Law as emanating from the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty. IX. It has been asserted that the United States is bound by her general arbitration treaty of April 4, 1908, with Great Britain to have the dispute concerning the interpretation of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty decided by an award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague. It is, however, not at all certain that this dispute falls under the British-American Arbitration Treaty. Article I of this treaty stipulates:-- "Differences which may arise of a legal nature or relating to the interpretation of treaties existing between the two contracting parties and which it may not have been possible to settle by diplomacy, shall be referred to the Permanent Court of Arbitration established at the Hague by the Convention of the 29th of July 1899, provided, nevertheless, that they do not affect the vital interests, the independence, or the honour of the two contracting States, _and do not concern the interests of third parties_."