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Open diplomacy, negotiation under the scrutiny of the public, has long fascinated students.1 Conference diplomacy is one form, though not the only one, of open diplomacy, and to its study Professor Birn made a contribution in CSSH for July 1970; as appropriate in this journal, his essay was accompanied by comments from Professor Singer. Enlightening though both essays are, these remarks are provoked by the belief that their main point is not established. Professor Singer's, while in form a comment on Professor Birn's, made little reference to it. Indeed it had comparatively little to say about conference diplomacy at all. Rather it was a restatement of what some students of public opinion believe that the effect of public opinion on the conduct of foreign policy has been. There are few areas in which large and unsupported generalizations are more freely advanced. Neither in Professor Birn's paper, nor in the history of modern international relations, is there evidence to substantiate them. Before we can consider the effect of public opinion, we need some general model of conference diplomacy. The term 'conference', as commonly used, is applied to a meeting of a group of nations. One might have a conference of two, but one would hardly describe it as such. Now specific issues in international affairs are not usually of primary concern to more than two parties. Therefore they are not dealt with in conferences. When a dispute between two states over a specific issue is coming to a head, they are not able to take part in a conference, least of all a disarmament conference; they are arming. In their very nature, the subjects of conferences are general-disarmament, monetary arrangements, the law of the sea, or the like.2 Yet if every state in the world were content with the international situation, we may reasonably suppose that the level of armaments would give no cause for concern. A disarmament conference is possible, and offers 1 Elaborate notes are out of place in a short analytical piece such as this. Many of my citations would be those listed by Professor Singer. General references would take us no further; more specific comment would take me too far afield. 2 The peace conference after a general war is clearly a special case. It seems likely that its character as a conference, given to it by the fact that there are several participants, will dominate its character as a settlement between victors and vanquished.

ALTHOUGH the literature on the isthmian canal diplomacy is extensive,' another addition to the numerous articles and books already written on the subject may be useful for the following reasons: While much attention has rightly been paid to the part played by this phase of United States diplomacy on the emergence of the United States as a world power, far less study has been devoted to the changing course of British policy. It is not always sufficiently recognized that vital British interests were also involved in the solution of the canal question and that the role of giving up rights hitherto enjoyed is at least as difficult as the assumption of fresh responsibilities. Moreover, today, of less importance appear purely rnational gains and of far more significance the development of grood Anglo-American relations, for the Anglo-American alliance forms the very cornerstone of the defense of the free world. The sig,nature of the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in i9OI markedand the British cabinet was in no doubt about this-the conscious British recognition of the eventual United States supremacy in the Western Hemisphere and thus entailed a fundamental change in the relations of the two countries. The danger of an Anglo-American collision over a struggle for predominance in Central America and in the Caribbean was removed and the basis of the later alliance was laid in these years. There are few more decisive events in the history of international relations in the twentieth century. Yet the American side of the story is much better known than the British. The State Department records and the private papers of the principal American negotiators-Hay, Choate, and Henry White-have been available for some time, but the British Foreign Office archives for this period have