The Americans are puzzled to know what to do with
the money paid under the Geneva Award. They have paid up all claims, and the ' Alabama' Commission ceased to exist at the end of the year, but there is a surplus of /1,800,000 remaining undistributed. Part of this has accrued from interest, but the whole sum now lies at the disposal of Congress and the President. It is said that there is a strong feeling in the United States in favour of returning the balance to Great Britain, and we can only hope that it may be influential enough to affect the action of Congress, Such an act of political honesty would do more to make future arbitrations possible, and to restore the confidence of Great Britain in the American people, than a dozen treaties, and we are not without hope that it may be-performed. There is sometimes a deficiency of justice over there, especially about boundary claims, but there is never a deficiency of genero-
Thie conntry door not want the money, but it does want evidence that the Americans in pressing the' Alabama' claims so sharply sought only justice.
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