THE AMERICAN CLAIMS.
THE correspondence between Mr. Adams and Lord Russell on the question of compensation for the damages in- flicted 'by the Alabama and her consorts on the commercial marine of the United States is too grave, moderate, and care- fully self-restrained on both sides not to wear an uncomfortable aspect to all who wish for permanently pacific relations be- tween the two countries. Both the statesmen write with that care and guarded courtesy which show how sensible they are to the possible ill effects of a single word of needless provo- cation, and each has enough of precedent on his side either in the former conduct of the other or the vague maxims of international law generally, to make the ease look like one for compromise, without affording sufficient popular apology to any but a weak power for yielding its own views. If either were notoriously the inferior of the other in strength, there is sufficient of doubtful matter on both sides to make a concession on either side feasible, and if there were no popular irritation in the United States there is no question but that the policy of the United States in former discussions of the same kind would be suffi- cient justification for a silent withdrawal of the claims of the Government. But in fact the irritation in the States, especially since the piratical ravages of the Shenandoah among the whalers in Behring's Straits subsequent to the close of the war, is intense, and on the other hand, the English people are in no mood to concede claims of a kind which the United States peremptorily repudiated towards Portugal as recently as fifteen years ago. The situation is therefore one in which neither party is inclined to recede a single step, and yet in which there is but little chance of the controversy sinking into abeyance without serious consequences. Arbi- tration has been proposed and absolutely refused by Lord Russell, and the mixed Commission which he has suggested in its place, to consider all such claims for injuries done to the subjects of either nation through the war as either Government shall consent to submit, is evidently not intended to cover the only class of injuries on which the pride of the American Union is really roused. We will briefly sketch the strongest aspects of each side of the carte, and point out the only consideration in which we can see any reasonable hope of coming to a mutual understanding.
Mr. Adams has, we think, made a mistake—a serious mistake we should think it, had it not been almost forced upon him by the fact that the secret feeling of the American people has always supported him, and supported him very strongly in his view, —in insisting so much on what he calls our "precipitate and unprecedented" recognition of the South as a belligerent power as the origin of the naval exploits of the Confederates. and the source of all the subsequent mischief. Lord Russell admits indeed that the recognition was "unprecedented" in its earliness, but he points out that all the circumstances were unprecedented also, that they involved interests unprecedently large, spread over an unprecedented area of the globe, and absolutely calling for as early as possible a definition of our policy. We acted before France, it is true, but the immense maritime interests involved required us to take the lead. It would have been mere shutting our eyes to facts to affect to doubt the existence of a war certain to cover—indeed then covering—a vast area, and certain to involve dozens of ports distributed along the whole coast from Mexico to the Potomac;-. and it would have been childish to doubt that the Pre- sident in proclaiming the blockade, really meant to exer- cise the rights of an international, not merely of a muni- cipal blockade, and, stop all assistance sent to his enemy on the high seas if necessary. The assertion now made, that but for England and France the blockade would have been. purely municipal, and its rights not been exercised on the- high seas at all, is simply ridiculous. To have been guilty of such a neglect of natural advantages would have been in the highest degree culpable, and not permitted by the American people for a moment. We do not believe that the thought of a more municipal blockade ever crossed Mr. Lincoln's mind. It is a mere gloss of controversial criticism now. Bat Mr. Adams- says we might have waited, as the custom is, till the need for the discussion of the international law bearing on the- subject had been forced upon us by a concrete ease of capture. No doubt we might, but we were not obliged to do so, the war- being a flagrant fact, and its dimensions no matter of reason- able doubt. And undoubtedly the necessary tendency of all the modern practice in such oases, —necessary because the scale- of transactions to which the practice of each neutral mid belligerent in such wars applies grows so rapidly from generation to generation,—is to take a definite line as- early as possible, in order that all the interests affected. in every part of the globe may not be without early notice. It behoved us to let our Australian colonies, for instance, know at once whether the Southern privateers which Mr. Davis had declared his intention to send out, were. to be treated as pirates or to have the rights of belligerents. Thereon depended in great measure of course the behaviour of such privateers to neutral ships, and the subsequently proved poverty of the Confederate resources in manning and- sending out these ships, which bore so little proportion to their resources on land, though it was scarcely anticipated in England, would, even if it had been known, have furnished no excuse for not giving the naval rights of a belligerent to any power so well-organized on land as to cover millions of square miles- with rebellion for four years. In short, no one can deny that- the promptness of our action in this matter was in the interests- of humanity and of commerce, and that under similar circum- stances the American Government would certainly have been equally prompt, and justified in such promptness by the- necessary conditions of modern commerce and warfare. It is- true that Mr. Adams is right in saying that if we had held. the Southern privateers to be pirates, we should have had no- Alabama difficulties, because they would have been deprived of all ports but the generally inaccessible Southern ports. But to treat them as pirates would have been impossible in any part of the world. As Lord Russell justly observes, even in the North itself it was impossible to treat either privateersmen as pirates, or the Southern soldiers as rebels. And this being obvious to all the world, it was the clear duty of England to take the position necessarily laid down for her by every con- sideration of prudence and humanity as early as possible.
On Mr. Adams's second point, that, belligerent rights once- granted, our Foreign Enlistment Act proved inadequate to its end, that our Government refused to strengthen it, though re- quested by the United States and having half acceded to the request, that inefficient as it was, it was even still less effi- ciently administered, he has a very much stronger ease, and Lord Russell only becomes effective in reply when retorting with his tu quoque by recalling the consistent conduct and language of the Federal Government itself towards Portugal between 1816 and 1850. There is no doubt whatever that our Foreign Enlistment Act when tried by the test of experience was quite unequal to the demands on it, and that the only cases in which the Government adequately fulfilled its intention were those in which they exceeded the powers given them. There is more to- be said in apology for their refusal to adopt the new clauses- suggested by Mr. Adams and embodied in the American Act. Our Government maintain that in the hands of the American, Government those clauses had proved practically quite as in- efficient as our own Act, weak as it is, in the hands of the British Government,—and that in four years far more cruisers escaped from American ports to assist the revolution against Portugal than escaped from English ports to assist the Con- federates in the same time. It does not seem likely therefore that had we adopted Mr. Adams's suggestion it would have removed the cause of offence. Of course Lord Russell has not much to say in excuse for the escape of the Alabama, and on this bead, except so far as to exone- rate the Government from any wilful neglect, his answer is exceedingly weak. The Board of Customs had pledged themselves to "keep a strict watch on the vessel," which they failed to do, and the telegram to detain her was not sent till two days after her escape. It was a blundering business, as we may very well afford to confess, but it was the only ease
in which all reasonable and legal precautions were not taken ; and the United States refused to be responsible for much worse and more numerous deficiencies of a similar kind in the case of Portugal. Where good faith and a reasonable amount of diligence have been shown, no State can be expected, ex- cept on grounds of high policy affecting its own future, to accept any responsibility for acts done by those over whom • it has no control, simply because a minor administrative
blunder of its own was one condition of the power to oommit those acts. For the escape of the Shenandoah, as Lord Rus- sell shows, we are in no way to blame. No evidence was produced against it, and its equipment was all managed in waters where we had no jurisdiction. Is there, then, no ground at all on which an approxima- tion between the views of the two Governments might be attained without sacrifice of dignity on the part of either ? We think there is. America has, since the beginning of the century, exactly changed places with England, upholding now the claims of belligerents which she formerly resisted, and resisting the claims of neutrals which she formerly upheld. England's attitude is equally inconsistent with that taken by her in Lord Stowell's time, when she was intent upon curbing the mischievous power of neutrals to assist belligerfents. Ought not this reciprocal change of position to suggest to both Governments the dangers attending a too ex- clusive advocacy of the rights of either belligerent or neutral, and an agreement in some new line of policy—freely ad- mitted by both as inconsistent with some of their own former positions, and accepted, not on the strength of former pre- cedents, but for their own interest as a precedent for the future ? We do not hesitate to say that there is great future danger to us in asserting the rights of neutrals even so strongly as Lord Russell does in the present controversy. If, says Mr. Adams, neutrals are to be permitted in future to refuse all responsibility for the acts of cruisers which have escaped from their ports, whether with or without culpable negligence, "neutral ports will become the true centres from which the most effective and dangerous enterprises against the commerce of belligerents may be contrived, fitted out, and executed. . . . Ships, men, and money will always be at hand for the service of any power sufficiently strong to hold forth a probability of repayment in any form, or adroit enough to secure a share of the popular sympathy in its undertakings. New Floridas, Alabama, Shenandoahs will appear on every sea." This argument has always seemed to us to have the greatest force, and we have frequently pressed it on English statesmen. We can blockade Prussian ports, for instance, but if Prussia may give a flag to any American cruiser escaping from Boston or New York, English commerce will quite as soon be swept from the sea in a war with Prussia as Prussian commerce. This is fatal to English interests. Therefore while maintaining, as we do, that we have done nothing and omitted nothing which cannot be far more than justified by American precedents, is not the present condition of mind of the 'United States a great opportunity for improving the future precedents on this subject? Why should not English statesmen, while expressly repudiating all obliga- tion to give compensation for the Alabama on the principles of existing international law, avow their wish to establish a new English precedent for the future, if they can obtain the con- currence of the United States, and even give their consent to some indemnification as the price of a treaty by which the two Governments should engage, with the consent of the Legislatures of both countries, to accept such responsibility in future wherever reasonable evidence of any departmental or ministerial negligence could be produced? It is quite true that the United States have hitherto refused to apologise for much greater sins than those of which we have been guilty. But that is just the reason why it is wise to catch them in the opposite mood, and secure, by a reasonable concession, their better conduct for the future.
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