ing as they do the entire submission, to discuss their elaborate argument in some detail.

They contend (Brief, p. 12) that

"Said treaties, under which you act, do not submit for your consideration and adjudication claims to be by you adjudicated as if such claims came to you as res nova, but these claims, on the contrary, under said treaties, are submitted to you as claims which have been once adjudicated, and where that adjudication has been so attacked, by one party to the controversy, as to have induced the high contracting parties to order a "review" of the former adjudication. And in such review, in the nature of a new trial, you are bound to proceed as a reviewing court, for the purpose of determining whether the former awards should, upon principles of law, be "surcharged"

or

"abrogated;" and, in determining this question, the Commission is bound to concede to the former awards and adjudication such force and legal effect, in favor of the validity of the awards, as the international law gives to final awards when a new law or treaty has brought them under review of international commissions."

The argument in support of the proposition seems to proceed, though as to its principle features not necessarily based, upon the assumption of ambiguity in the language of the treaty (the convention of 1885 and its supplements being regarded as one) defining the duties of the Commission respecting the adjudication of claims submitted to it. For, as a preliminary step, counsel invoke for the benefit of the certificate holders the aid of the principle interrogatively put by Mr. Justice Story in Shanks v. Dupont (3 Peters, 249), cited, to wit:

"If the treaty admits of two constructions-one limited, and the other liberal; one which will further, and the other exclude, private rights-why should not the most liberal exposition be adopted?"

And which is stated more broadly by Mr. Justice Swayne in Hauenstein v. Yulhan (100 U. S., 483), also cited, as follows:

"Where a treaty admits of two constructions, one restrictive as to rights that may be claimed under it, and the other liberal, the latter is to be preferred."

No particular passage susceptible of "two constructions," to which this principle may or does attach itself, and turn an otherwise doubtful meaning to the support of "private

rights," has been pointed out, or by us discerned. We are left to infer that counsel regard the treaty as a whole so far ambiguous in the respects indicated as to call for the application of the rule named. But, if the requisite ambiguity be conceded, does the occasion exist for the application of the doctrine in support of their contention? It seems to us not. If there were no other objection, conflicting private interests stand in the way.

It so happens that, of the 49 or 50 claims disposed of by the former Commission, aggregating in amount nearly five million dollars, money awards were adjudged in only 24 of them, amounting to but a little over a million and a quarter dollars. The others were rejected or not considered. Those receiving certificates of award are thus in the minority, both in number and amount, to say nothing of claims not passed upon by it, but pending here.

To adopt a rule of construction that would aid these, and operate against the interests of the unsuccessful claimants, would not, on the whole, "further " private rights. For the rule, we think, cannot be applied to one class of claimants only. Its office is to reveal, not to vary or accommodate the meaning of an instrument.

It would require unmistakable terms, not observed in the treaty, to show that a discrimination among claimants, all citizens of the same country, was intended.

Again, an international award, disconnected with the means of ascertainment, is no more than any other expression of differences arrived at by other means with like opportunity, skill, and probity. It is what is behind it that bestows legal energy, namely: The adjudication of a competent tribunal supported by the plighted faith of the states concerned. The full force of such an award may be said to equal the credit which reasonably attaches to an adjustment of submitted differences between disputants reached through the care, candor, and intelligence exercised in that behalf, plus the legal effects such an adjudication imparts thereto. This

addition, the seal of the public law upon the adjustment, gives the award or sentence, while undisturbed, its quality of verity. It is the source of all inhering presumptions, and, of course, pertains to all awards alike-to the negative as well as to the positive, i. e., to those rejecting as well as those allowing claims. The interested states may set them aside-may break the seal; then, in the absence of preservative provisions, the legal effects cease, leaving only the fact that such an adjustment had been made, valuable or not in itself, according to attendant circumstances.

It follows that if the old awards are to be taken in one class of cases as prima facie correct, or as having any legal virtue as evidence, they must also be in the other, the treaty not stipulating to the contrary. The rule would not be applied, it is apprehended, where the interests of a single individual would suffer thereby. It does not present a question of majorities.

If, then, the contention of counsel be sound, it must find its support independently of the principle so invoked in its aid. It is unnecessary to consider whether under other circumstances these controversies, being between sovereign powers, could be affected by the application of the principle.

Two principal citations from eminent authorities are relied upon by counsel as directly supporting their main proposition, one a passage from Vattel, book 2, chap. 18, sec. 329, and the other the case of the Choctaw Nation v. the United States (119 U. S., 1).

The former is cited as "thoroughly settled law" to show "what the prima facie effect of such awards [those of the old Commission] is when they, by new treaties or otherwise, are brought under review.""

It reads, with counsel's emphasis, as follows:

"If, then, their sentence be confined within these precise points, the disputants must acquiesce in it. They cannot say that it is manifestly unjust, since it is pronounced of a question which they themselves have rendered doubtful by the discordance of their claim, and which has been referred, as such, to the decision of the arbitrators. Before they can pretend to evade

such a sentence they should prove, by incontestable facts, that it was the offspring of corruption or flagrant partiality."

Waiving the assumption here that the former awards are under "review"-one of the things counsel set out to showwe have to remark that whatever may be fairly deduced from this passage touching the character or effects of an arbitration sentence would seem to arise from its condition before disturbance or "evasion" by treaty and not after. The precept is addressed to states which have arbitrated their differences, and is advisory to them, in movements to disturb the results of arbitration. If sound, it might well have been quoted to the two governments, pending the negotiation of the present treaty; but it has no obvious application to subsequent conditions. Whatever course may be thought advisable for states to pursue in such matters, it will not be denied that they can by treaty evade arbitration sentences to which they are parties, for any cause, or even without (if that be conceivable), if they choose to do so. They have the power, and its exertion rests potentially in their discretion.

Of course, it does not concern us to inquire into the legitimacy of the action had about the old awards. There is an aspect, however, in which the question seems to be incidentally involved. The logic of counsel on this head appears to come to about this, namely: The commission is bound to assume the two states acted lawfully in making the treaty. The only lawful mode of "evading" the old awards was to proceed in that behalf according to the "thoroughly settled law," to wit: Vattel's rule. As that rule was confessedly not complied with, the awards are not "evaded," but continued in force, retaining their legal characteristics until ended by new adjudications. Taking their understanding of the author as correct (only for the argument) when they say (Brief, 25): "Vattel declares to be necessary for the overthrow of international arbitration" the establishment of fraud in connection with its awards; and assuming, as we must, entire legality of action in

the states, it follows either that the old awards are not "evaded," or that Vattel's rule is not the law for these cases. We are constrained to accept the latter conclusion. In the first place, as a matter of fact, the two Powers did not "acquiesce in the old "sentences." They made provision to "evade" them; while they did not claim, as counsel show, the establishment, by "incontestable facts," either of corruption or flagrant partiality.

Mr. Secretary of State Bayard on one occasion used this axiomatic language:

"No matter how solemn and how authoritative may be a judgment, it is subject to be set aside by the consent of the parties. To the awards of international commissions, were the award in this case to be considered as such, this proposition applies with peculiar force, since as is elsewhere noticed in this report, it is a settled principle of international law that no sovereign can in honor press an unjust or mistaken award, even though made by a judicial international tribunal invested with the power of swearing witnesses and receiving or rejecting testimony."

Mr. Senator Edmunds, in the North Am. Rev. for Jan., 1879, wrote:

"A just nation, however, in whose favor an award has been made, should be willing to forego the advantage of a victory on far less evident grounds than those which would justify a refusal by the losing party to perform, and to readjust and retry the matter in dispute, if it had reason to think that any serious error had been committed, or that anything of corruption or unfairness had played a part in the affair, for no honorable government could consent to profit by a success so gained."

(We understand the Senator to have used the language we have emphasized in a judicial rather than popular sense.) There is great force and wisdom in what Mr. Secretary of State Evarts said in his report to the President (1880), on the Weil and La Abra cases, as to disturbance of international settlements by arbitration, namely:

"The principle of the settlement of international differences by arbitral commissions is of such deep and wide-reaching interest to civilization, and the value of such arbitration depends so essentially upon the certainty and finality of its decision, that no government should lightly weaken its influence or diminish its consideration by making its action the subject of renewed discussion."