to be established by it, afford ample evidence to condemn the modern practice of secret diplomacy, and to enforce the necessity for the resumption by Parliament of its legitimate consultative and controlling authority in all such matters. To this end no statutory provision is necessary; Parliament has already ample power, by address to the crown, or by the refusal of supplies if necessary, to enforce its rights, its authority, and the will of the people in what regards the conduct of public affairs; and it may be insisted that no exercise of those powers could be considered overstrained, or unjustifiable, when employed to arrest such "misunderstandings," such scandals, such ruinous responsibilities, as those which have been incurred to us by the Treaty of Washington of 1871.

It is hardly to be believed possible that Parliament--after its experience of six months of wearisome and humiliating anxiety in connection with this last Diplomatic miscarriage, should, through party influences, or unworthy apathy, neglect the occasion of reassuming the honourable and responsible functions they have too long neglected: but, if they should so fail in this duty, the duty of the country is plain. Let the constituencies throughout the empire, disregarding for the nonce little party and sectarian questions in which they are habitually too much engrossed, make Diplomatic Reform their one great test question, and Great Britain will once more take her proper place amongst nations and be freed from the dangers and disgrace with which she has been recently assailed.

185

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE TO PAGE 179.

THE GENEVA SETTLEMENT, EXCLUDING THE
INDIRECT CLAIMS.

It was considered by us, at the time of writing, that th account given in the text of the declaration of the Arbitrators at Geneva, on the 19th June, in regard to the Indirect Claims, and what afterwards followed on the part of the contracting parties, might have been sufficient as establishing the effectual withdrawal of those claims on the part of the United States. Some hesitating remarks uttered in Parliament, however, which have been followed by more outspoken observations in some portions of the press, lead to the belief that some doubts are entertained by many intelligent persons upon the subject. The Pall Mall Gazette,' for instance, in an article published on the 29th June, distinctly declares it to be its “duty to point out that the assumption that the Indirect Claims are finally extinguished is a mistake;" and after a long and ingenious argument, based upon the statements of the Arbitrators and of the President of the United States, respectively, insists that "the claims are not withdrawn; they are held in abeyance (or so the American Government may hold, if they please), contingent on the fulfilment of a certain condition: namely, that the declaration of the Arbitrators shall be taken and agreed to as determinative of an important question of public law involved."

Under the circumstances, we consider the matter to be of sufficient importance to entitle it to more careful and elaborate attention than has been given to it in the preceding text.

It must be admitted, without reserve, that the extra-judicial interposition of the Arbitrators was not in accordance with

precedent, nor with the regulations laid down for their conduct in the articles of the Treaty. The British Government, not having put in their "argument" within the time prescribed, were strictly out of court, or at least, out of the power of putting in their “argument" at any later period. They had not, it is true, carried out the threat they had darkly suggested in their note "covering" their Counter-case, as to certain steps they might resolve to take in the case of their not coming to an agreement with the United States before the 15th June, the day fixed for the reassembling of the Tribunal; but it would appear that by the first article of the Treaty the functions of the Tribunal might at any moment be invalidated and its existence destroyed by the retirement of the Arbitrator appointed by them. It was under these circumstances, -the complete arguments on both sides not being in their hands, and it being questionable whether one of the parties was still before the Court,-that the Arbitrators vólunteered a “statement,” intended to remove an apparently insurmountable difficulty, in which they went to the extent of prejudging an important issue with which, strictly speaking, they were not as yet "seised." There is no doubt, as stated by us in the text, that the United States Government might have repudiated this proceeding, disavowed all cognizance of the opinion on the "principles of international law" propounded by the Arbitrators, and insisted upon the Tribunal proceeding to examine and determine the merits of the matter, as set out in their case, counter-case, and argument. But they did not adopt this course.

Yet, there were strong grounds upon which the United States might have so refused all consent to the exceptional course adopted by the Arbitrators, and its consequences, if they had thought proper. In the first place, the Arbitrators sought to prejudge the question as to indirect claims, " upon the principles of international law applicable to such cases,” abstaining from expressing or embodying “any opinion" as to the interpretation or effect of the treaty:"-whereas they were charged to consider the claims as affected by certain "new rules," propounded for the purpose by the treaty, and in con

formity with the proper "interpretation of the treaty," and especially as (possibly) ruled by the words "growing out of," more which everybody admits to be novel, and inconsistent with the usual" principles of international law.”

There was, moreover, a special reason, as in equity between the parties, upon which the United States might have dissented from this extra-judicial interference of the Arbitrators, if they had thought it proper or desirable. There was, and still is, in existence a "supplemental article," agreed upon in principle between the two Governments, which provides for the withdrawal of the indirect claims by the latter, upon certain conditions as to future policy with regard to neutrals; and the acceptance of the course suggested by the Arbitrators, would necessarily go to abandoning the claims, without the stipulated equivalent. But no objection on this ground was raised by the United States.

Great stress is laid upon the seemingly guarded language in which President Grant acknowledged and accepted the statement of the Arbitrators, namely, that the declaration made by the Tribunal "is accepted by the President of the United States as determinative of their judgment upon the important question of public law involved,"-without any declaration of acquiescence in that judgment; which is followed by the announcement that, "consequently, the above-mentioned claims will not be insisted upon before the Tribunal by the United States, and may be excluded from all consideration in any award that may be made,"-no absolute withdrawal of the claims being made, such as to prevent their being revived on a future occasion in another form.

But those who write in this sense overlook that all these proceedings are governed by the terms of the Treaty, and that the Treaty distinctly refers to the Arbitrators " all the said claims growing out of the acts committed by the aforesaid vessels," and stipulates that "the high contracting parties engage to consider the result of the proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration as a full, perfect, and final settlement of all the claims hereinbefore referred to; and further engage that every such claim, whether the same may or may not have

been presented to the notice of, made, preferred, or laid before the Tribunal, shall from and after the conclusion of the proceedings of the Tribunal be considered and treated as finally settled, barred, and thenceforth inadmissible.”

Mr. Bancroft, on behalf of his Government, on the 27th June, permitted Lord Tenterden "to file the Argument of Her Britannic Majesty's Government," thereby waiving any objections on the score of default; and the "Argument was then accordingly put in and filed, and the parties were thereupon again completely and formally before the Tribunal; all which facts are duly recorded in the protocol of the day's proceedings.

Finally, we have a right to expect that the award of the Tribunal, whenever it is made, will be consistent with what has been declared by them, and assented to by the United States, to the effect of excluding and disallowing the indirect claims; and that award, as we maintain, will be final, complete, and beyond all possibility of disturbance.

THE END.

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