disposition of Sir Alexander Cockburn to stop and turn aside in order to criticise Mr. Stampfli.

Mr. Stampfli, in conformity with the vote of the Tribunal, printed his provisional opinions, and deliv. ered them to the other Arbitrators from time to time, and to the respective Agents and Counsel.

Sir Alexander Cockburn disingenuously suppressed his provisional opinions until the last moment, and then filed a single copy only of the mass of matter, general and special, entitled "Reasons," which appears in print for the first time in the London Gazette.

Now, in the provisional opinions of Mr. Stampfli, it is quite possible there may have been some error of statement. Sir Alexander takes pains to affirm it. But, if there be any such, it is quite immaterial, and does not affect any important conclusion either of fact or of law.

Sir Alexander also committed errors of this class in the provisional opinions which he read. Some of them were noted at the time, and are still remembered. These errors may have been corrected in the print which we now have. Indeed, the manuscript shows numerous corrections. Nevertheless, but for the suppression of his provisional opinions, his col leagues might have interlarded their provisional or revised opinions with similar captious criticisms of him. It is presumable that they did not think it be coming or fair to do this; and it was to the last de gree unfair in Sir Alexander to do it, in a document. foisted into the record, as it was, at the instant of ad journment, and immediately carried off without being

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actually filed with the Secretary or otherwise placed in the archives of the Tribunal.

Now, in the early pages of his "Reasons," he imputes to Mr. Stampfli the having said "that there is no such thing as international law, and that consequently we [the Arbitrators] are to proceed inde pendently of any such law," and "according to some intuitive perception of right and wrong or speculative notions, etc."

The imputation is calumnious. No such statement appears in any of the printed opinions of Mr. Stampfli; no such declaration was ever made by him orally at any of the Conferences. The declaration of Sir Al exander in this respect is but a sample of the rash. ness and inaccuracy of representation which pervade the "Reasons."

What M. Stampfli says on the general subject of "international law," in so far as regards the matters before the Tribunal, is as follows:

"Principes généraux de droit.

"Dans ses considérants juridiques, le Tribunal doit se guider par les principes suivants:

"1. En premier licu, par les trois Règles posées dans l'Article VI. du Traité, lequel porte que,―et cetera.

"D'après le Traité ces trois Règles prévalent sur les principes. que l'on pourrait déduire du droit des gens historique et de la science.

"2. Le droit des gens historique, ou bien la pratique du droit des gens, ainsi que la science et les autorités scientifiques, peuvent être considérés comme droit subsidiaire, en tant que les principes à appliquer sont généralement reconnus et ne sont point sujets à controverse, ni en désaccord avec les trois Règles

cidessus. Si l'une ou l'autre de ces conditions vient à manquer, c'est au Tribunal d'y suppléer en interprétant et appliquant les trois Règles de son mieux et en toute conscience."

At the time when Sir Alexander sent to press his misrepresentation of the opinions of Mr. Stampfli, he had in his hands the authentic statement thereof as printed at Geneva. There is no excuse, therefore, for this malicious and dishonorable endeavor of the British Arbitrator to prejudice the character of the Swiss Arbitrator in Great Britain.

Nevertheless, Mr. Stampfli, according to Sir Alexander, having cut adrift from all positive law, adopts instead "speculative notions," or "some intuitive perception of right and wrong;" and such ideas Sir Alexander repudiates: or, as the London Telegraph has it, "the Chief Justice, armed with sarcasm as well as logic, runs full tilt against that doctrine:" to wit, the doctrine, still in the words of the Telegraph," that the duties which nations owe to each other must be de termined by the light of intuitive principles of jus tice." The Telegraph goes on, with truth and reason, to say that, after all, Mr. Stampfli is right, if he insists that "the rules of fair dealing, which we term international law, are not law in the same sense as the pos itive edicts of the common law; for the essence of such edicts' is that they come from a lawgiver in the form of a parliament or a sovereign: the rules of international justice are simply the code which experience and the judgment of able men have shown to be fair or expedient, but every civilized country feels them to be not less binding on that account." With

out pausing to consider whether these observations are perfectly accurate or not as a definition of the law of nations, we may assume that they are substantially so, and suffice at any rate to show clearly the uncaudid spirit of Sir Alexander's criticism of the imputed language of Mr. Stampfli,-a criticism which calls to mind a similar unjust and vicious reproach cast by Junius on Lord Mansfield.

The actual statement of Mr. Strempfli, as we have scen, was unexceptionably accurate and precise, in so far as regarded the matters before the Tribunal.

Meanwhile, Mr. Stampfli may have said orally, what he say's here in print, that in many supposable cases of deficient explicitness either of the conventional rules or of the historic law of nations, "c'est au Tribunal d'y suppléer en interprétant et appliquant les trois règles de son mieux et en toute conscience."

That is what the Viscount of Itajubá says in one of his opinions, namely, that a certain doctrine, asserted by the British Government, "froisse la conscience." It is what Count Sclopis intends, when he says, "Les nations ont entre elles un droit commun, ou, si on aime mieux, un lien commun, formé par l'équité et sanc tionné par le respect des intérêts réciproques;" and that such is the spirit of the Treaty of Washington, 'qui ne fait que donner la préférence aux règles de l'équité générale sur les dispositions d'une législation particulière quelle qu'elle puisse être." That is "the universal immutable justice," which in all systems of law, international or national, distinguishes right from wrong, and to which the United States appealed in

addressing the Tribunal of Arbitration. And it is the negation of all these great principles of "justice," "equity," or "conscience," which pervades the "Rea sons" of Sir Alexander Cockburn: in reflecting on which, the mind irresistibly reverts to that same line of reasoning which astonished the world in his par liamentary advocacy of David Pacifico.

And now, who is injured by Sir Alexander's acri monious arraignment of the United States in the last hour of the Arbitration? It does not successfully maintain the honor of the British Ministers; for it recognizes their failure to exercise due diligence, whether tried by the Treaty Rules, by the law of na tions, or by the Act of Parliament. Does it influence the action of the Tribunal? No: that was consum mated already. Does it injure the American Govern ment, its Agent and Counsel? No: so far as regards us, it does but prove that the American Agent and Counsel have done their duty regardless of the vin dictive ill-will of the British Arbitrator, and that the United States have been successful to such a degree as to throw the Chief Justice of England into ecstasies of spiteful rage, in which he strikes out wildly against friend and foe alike, but chiefly against his own Gov ernment, in his desultory criticism as well of the Treaty of Washington as of the judgment of the Tribunal of Arbitration.

For the British Government, we know, has no dis position to repudiate the Treaty, and it accepts the Award in good faith, and desires that it should be ac cepted by the people of Great Britain. It can not be K