up the discussion, some of them deprecating any violent agitation, but all finally concurring in the view that something should be done to avert all possibility of an award of damages on the indirect claims. British Government's 66 un It seems that at one time the cabinet had under consideration the propriety of asking for the withdrawal of the American Case, probably on account of certain statements in the chapter on friendliness." But it was not until February 3, 1872, that Her Majesty's government, in a note addressed by Earl Granville to General Schenck, announced the opinion that it was not within the province of the tribunal of arbitration at Geneva to decide upon the claims for indirect losses. On the opening of Parliament on February 6 the Queen's speech contained the following announcement: "The arbitrators appointed pursuant to the Treaty of Washington, for the purpose of amicably settling certain claims known as the Alabama claims, have held their first meeting at Geneva. "Cases have been laid before the arbitrators on behalf of each party to the treaty. In the Case so submitted on behalf of the United States, large claims have been included which are understood on my part not to be within the province of the arbitrators. On this subject I have caused a friendly communication to be made to the Government of the United States." Debate in the House of Lords. In the debate on this announcement in the House of Lords, Lord De La Warr declared that the indirect claims were "utterly inadmissible and could not be for one moment entertained." Viscount Powerscourt "trusted that the so called Alabama claims would soon be settled, and that a friendly understanding might be arrived at." Earl Granville referred to the statement which he had previously made on the subject, and said he trusted that he should be able, when the proper time came, if it should be necessary, to show "by reference to the particular words of the protocols and treaty, to the statements of the commissioners, and to former correspondence on the subject, not only what was our intention, but also what we had reason to suppose was the intention of the United States Government, and lastly, that the claims objected to are excluded by the words of the treaty." Hansard, CCIX. 33. 5627-40 Lord Derby said that while the Johnson-Clarendon convention "did not specially bar out these new and enormous claims for indirect injuries," the "first intimation the English public received on that subject was contained in that remarkable speech delivered by Mr. Sumner," after the negotiations were ended.1 mons. In the House of Commons on the same day Debate in the Com- Mr. Disraeli expressed the opinion that the paragraphs in the Queen's speech were inadequate to the occasion. He had always been in favor of friendly relations with the United States, and, with the late Earl Derby, was strongly opposed to the recognition of the Southern States, for which some were at one time extremely anxious. He had heard that the American Case had been in the possession of certain persons in England for more than a month. It demanded of the country a tribute greater than could be exacted by conquest and which would be perilous to their fortunes and their fame. Mr. Gladstone declared that the interpretation put upon the treaty by Her Majesty's government was "the true and unambiguous meaning of the words, and therefore the only meaning admissible, whether tried by grammar, by reason, by policy, or by any other standard," and that they reserved to themselves "the right to fall back on the plea that a man or a nation must not be taken to be insane, or totally devoid of the gift of sense," since it would amount "almost to an interpretation of insanity to suppose that any negotiators could intend to admit, in a peaceful arbitration, * claims which not even the last extremities of war and the lowest depths of misfortune would force a people with a spark of spirit to submit to at the point of death." " Hansard, 3d series, CCIX. 38. 2 Hansard, 3d series, CCIX. 85, 86. The Times, in an editorial on February 7, 1872, expressed the opinion that Mr. Gladstone went too far in saying that the treaty would bear only one interpretation. It thought that the question must be settled by a subsidiary agreement, according to the British interpretation. On the same day the Pall Mall Gazette declared that it was impossible to deny "that the American claims" were "tenable under the language of the treaty itself," though it was equally true that the same language was not opposed to the British interpretation of the true spirit of the agreement. * The Berlin correspondent of the Daily News, Saturday, February 10, 1872, said: “We have had a panic on our stock exchange, a panic occasioned by that troublesome and interminable Alabama question. * It began on Thursday. Nobody wanted to buy, and everybody wanted to sell. United States bonds and other American stock could not be sold at all.” Statements of British Commissioners. By the speech of Earl Granville, as well as by the remarks of the other speakers, it appears that the contention of Her Majesty's government that the indirect claims were not within the jurisdiction of the tribunal of arbitration rested upon the protocols of the joint high commission and on the language of the treaty itself. But, in a speech at Exeter on May 17, 1872, while the controversy as to the claims was still pending, Sir Stafford Northcote said that he and his colleagues "understood a promise to be given that these claims were not to be put for ward, and were not to be submitted to arbritation." Subsequently, however, in a letter addressed to Lord Derby, and read by the latter in the House of Lords, Sir Stafford Northcote explained his meaning by saying that he referred to the "statement voluntarily and formally made by the American commissioners at the opening of the conference of the 8th of March," and that he understood this statement "to amount to an engagement that the claims in question should not be put forward in the event of a treaty being agreed on." But, with the other British commissioners, he had, he said, never for a moment thought of relying upon that conclusion or upon any other matter outside of the treaty itself; they thought that the language of the treaty was sufficient, according to the ordinary rules of interpretation, to exclude the claims for indi rect losses, and at all events the British commissioners meant to make it so.2 In a speech in the House of Lords on June 4, 1872, the Marquis of Ripon denied that the British commissioners at Washington had relied on "a secret understanding subsisting between them and the American commissioners that these indirect claims would not be brought forward." "On the 8th of March," he said, "as referred to in the protocol, these claims were mentioned by the United States commissioners-mentioned in a manner which, in substance, is described in that protocol on your lordship's table; and throughout the course of the subsequent negotiations these claims were not again brought forward." He also said that it was the object of the British commissioners to employ language in the treaty which excluded the claims.3 'Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, II. 594. 2 Sir Stafford H. Northcote to Lord Derby, Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, II. 604. 3 Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, II. 603. can Commissioners. When the report of Sir Stafford Northcote's Statements of Ameri- speech at Exeter, to the effect that a promise had been given as to the indirect claims, was received at Washington, Mr. Fish addressed a communication to each of the American commissioners saying that he had never heard of any such promise nor suspected anything of the kind, and asking them to state their recollections on the subject. Mr. Hoar answered that he never thought or suspected that any such promise existed, or was understood by anyone to exist; but that, on the contrary, he "always thought and expected that those claims, though incapable from their nature of computation, and from their magnitude incapable of compensation, were to be submitted to the tribunal of arbitration, and urged as a reason why a gross sum should be awarded, which should be an ample and liberal compensation for our losses by captures and burnings, without going into petty details." 2 Judge Nelson said that his recollection was distinct that no such promise was in fact made.3 Messrs. Schenck and Williams answered to the same effect.* standing. When these responses were given it was A Case of Misunder- understood by the American commissioners that Sir Stafford Northcote in his speech at Exeter referred to some secret or personal promise, especially as he also said that the difference which had arisen in relation to the indirect claims raised "painful questions" between the British and the American commissioners. But the natural inference from this language was afterward wholly negatived by his letter to Lord Derby, as well as by the speech of the Marquis of Ripon in the House of Lords, so that in the end the controversy was narrowed down to the questions whether the proceedings of the joint high commission of March 8, 1871, as entered in the published protocol of the 4th of May, constituted an engagement on the part of the United States not to present the indirect claims at Geneva, and whether the language of the treaty itself excluded them from the jurisdiction of the tribunal. When we consider all the circumstances of the case, and the character of the negotiators of the treaty, there can be no Mr. Fish to Judge Nelson, June 3, 1872, Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, II. 597. 2 Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, II. 598. 3 Id. 599. + Id. 599, 600. doubt that the difference as to the question whether the indirect claims were excluded was the result of a simple misunderstanding. These claims formed a subject which the commissioners on both sides were more anxious to get rid of than to discuss. By various utterances the American public had been led to expect that they would be included in any reference to arbitration; and the American commissioners, while regarding the claims as unsound, desired to have them disposed of by the tribunal of arbitration. Understanding the situation of the American commissioners, and being desirous to conclude an arrangement, the British commissioners, thinking that the terms of the protocol and the language of the treaty would be so construed as to exclude the indirect claims, doubtless deemed it well to avoid any attempt to secure from the United States an express renunciation of them. This is, it should seem, a fair statement of the respective positions of the commissioners-positions perfectly comprehensible, and not in any wise morally censurable. But as the course of the United States, and of its agent at Geneva, in putting forward the indirect claims has been severely criticised, it is proper to present a review of the controversy as it appears in the records. Statement of March 8, 1871. As has been seen, the national or indirect claims were first formulated in the speech of Mr. Sumner, urging the rejection of the Johnson-Clarendon convention. They were diplomatically brought to the attention of the British Government by an instruction from Mr. Fish to Mr. Motley of September 25, 1869, which was read by Mr. Motley to Lord Clarendon. At the meeting of the joint high commission on March 8, 1871, to which reference has already been made, Mr. Fish opened the conference by reading a statement of the American claims, which appears in the protocol of May 4, 1871, as follows: "At the conference held on the eighth of March the American commissioners stated that the people and Government of the United States felt that they had sustained a great wrong, and that great injuries and losses were inflicted upon their commerce and their material interests by the course and conduct of Great Britain during the recent rebellion in the United States; that what had occurred in Great Britain and her colonies during that period had given rise to feelings in the United States which the people of the United States did not 1 For. Rel. 1873, part 3, pp. 329, 335; Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, II. 462. |