Mr. Gladstone appears to understand that the other parts of
the Treaty of Washington,—those referring to Canada, at least,—may (or may not) hold good, independently quite of the Alabama section of the Treaty. At least this is how we understand his reply to Mr. Gregory on Thursday night, though he qualified his statement by saying that "there is no connection, at any rate at the present time, between any question that has been raised at Geneva, and the practical postponement of the articles of the Treaty relating to Canada. It is only after Congress shall have per- formed its part of the covenant, which it will have to consider on its meeting again, that any question can arise with relation to the exe- cution of these Articles." The San Juan question, Mr. Gladstone added, was not held to be a part of the Canadian questions involved. We suppose this statement means that there is so much doubt about the separableness of the different parts of the Treaty, that the Congress of the United States must decide for itself whether it will hold to any, if the one it held to be the most important should fall through. Pending that, nothing is to be decided about the Canadian portions of the Treaty, which in any case require Con- gressional legislation to fulfil their conditions, and must therefore wait till the next Session in December.
