Its decision, on the whole, favored Newfoundland, but this fact is of little moment compared with the likelihood that a dispute almost a century and a half old has at last been permanently settled.
None of these international disputes and settlements to the north, however, excited anything like the popular interest aroused by one which occurred in the south.

The Spanish War made it abundantly evident that an isthmian canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific must be built.
The arguments of naval strategy which Captain Mahan had long been urging had received striking demonstration in the long and roundabout voyage which the Oregon was obliged to take.

The pressure of railroad rates on the trade of the country caused wide commercial support for a project expected to establish a water competition that would pull them down.

The American people determined to dig a canal.
The first obstacle to such a project lay in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain.

That obstacle Blaine had attempted in vain to remove; in fact his bungling diplomacy had riveted it yet more closely by making Great Britain maintain it as a point of honor.