Lord Derby's speech added very little to the discussion of
the Alabama claims except a strong opinion (not shared by Mr. Disraeli) that the policy of sending out a Commission to Wash- ington at all was a mistake, was a giving of the inch which was sure to lead to the Americans taking an ell. He held that, as the Americans had refused the arbitration offered by us in the Clarendon-Johnson treaty, we had put ourselves in the right and they had put themselves in the wrong, and we ought to have waited till they came to their reason, instead of showing ourselves so anxious to conciliate. For the rest, he was disposed to take ground solely on the position that no Treaty is binding in any sense which is notoriously not that of either of the signataries, and that we had conclusively shown how we understood the Treaty, and that, too, without eliciting any protest, in the House of Lords' debate of the 12th June, 1871. On that ground he was willing to give the Government his strongest support.
