• KING OSCAR AND THE UNITED STATES. [To THE EDITOR
OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 Sire—In your "News of the Week" (Spectator, October 25th), referring to the case between Germany and the United States, you say that "the American irritation reveals the grand difficulty of arbitration as a world.wide system." Of course, I know that you can barely touch the fringe of the subject in a note of twenty lines—and I have no wish to exceed that limit —but the words quoted sound a pessimistic note in respect of arbitration that is not warranted. So far as I know, two modes of settling international differences hold the field: war and arbitration. Merely as a matter of irritation it is surely a fact that the present irritation is small in comparison with the English irritation over the 'Alabama' decision, and there can be no doubt that the present irritation, is infinitesimal in comparison With the resulting irritation in America, Germany. and the whole of Europe bad the two nations plunged into war. Then it is surely incontestable that the moment the sword is drawn the scales of Justice lie unused. You say that "the contestants do not completely trust the impartiality of the arbitrator." May I ask if thinking men trust the impar- tiality of the sword to-day any more completely than they trust the impartiality of Lamech's sword to which the primitive song of slaughter refers P—I am, Sir, &c.,
Boonton; School, York. ARTHUR ROWNTREE. j
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