The Treaty which is to arrange our difference with America
has really been signed, though not, of course, as yet ratified by the Senate of the United States or by the Queen. The Times received the text of all the Alabama part of it by Atlantic Cable yesterday, and we have explained and criticized the more important arrange- ments in another column. We may add here, that the claims, not included in the so-called " Alabama " claims, made by Americans on England and Englishmen on America in reference to the period of the war, are to be settled by a Board consisting of three Commissioners, two to be named by the Queen and the President respectively, and the third, if possible, by the Queen and President conjointly, and if not, by the Spanish Envoy at Washington ; the Commission to meet at Washington, and to con- clude its labours within two years. The Times' correspondent adds that the Committee of the Senate on Foreign Relations is supposed to be very favourable to the treaty, Mr. Sumner himself only objecting to any admission of British claims under the clause we have just mentioned. Mr. Sumner holds, we suppose, that all wrongs suffered by British citizens during the war were a mere instalment of Providential retribution for our sins, which it would be flying in the face of Providence to ask compensation for. There seems to be no admission in the Treaty of any Canadian claims on the United States in connection with the Fenian raids, which may, perhaps, have been set off against the Confederate raid from Canada into Vermont.
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