The danger we have now to guard against, —and it
seems serious,—is lest our Government, being relieved of most of their Sear of actual damages for the Indirect Claims, should accept the authority of the Tribunal without further hesitation. In that -case, the Arbitrators may assert that under the Treaty of Washington they are empowered to deal with the Indirect Claims, and may give judgment on the demands of the American Case, in spite of the silence of the American counsel, and our position would be most ambiguous and unpleasant. We should have tacitly acquiesced in the authority of the tribunal by not pro- testing against it, and half Europe might think us bound in honour by the award. The only safe course for us is to protest to the Tribunal of Arbitrators on the 15th June that we recognise in it no jurisdiction in relation to the Indirect Claims, and will not be bound by anything it may think fit to decide on that subject. Bat if we make such a protest, will not the United States assert that we are curtailing the Tribunal of its proper legal authority, and so retire from the arbitration ? There seems to be the greatest possible danger of our being, we will not say entrapped, but drawn into a virtual recognition of the very authority we have hitherto consistently repudiated.
