LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE AMERICAN CASE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR-"J SIR,—It seems to me that the Indirect claims put forward in the American Case are shut out by the very words of the Treaty of Washington.
No claims except those " growing out of acts committed by the Alabama and other vessels from British ports " are referred to the tribunal of Arbitration by that Treaty.
Now does any man believe that we should ever have heard of a claim for the prolongation of the war and its consequent addi- tional cost, if America had from the first had no other ground on which to found it than the acts of these cruisers ?
Take a parallel case. Let us suppose that an Alabama had escaped from Boston during the war between France and Germany, had been commissioned in France, and had afterwards preyed upon German commerce ; further, that America and Germany had agreed to refer to arbitration the claims made by Germany "grow- ing out of acts committed by the Alabama ;" would it ever have occurred to M. Bismarck to have alleged that these acts had led to the prolongation of the war, and to have claimed damages on that ground ? Would America have agreed to submit such a pre- posterous claim to the tribunal of Arbitration.
Mr. Sumner and Mr. Fish originally based the claim for the prolongation of the war on the allegation that England had acknowledged the South as a belligerent with undue haste, and had violated the duties of- a neutral by supplying her with muni- tiona of war. America has withdrawn these allegations ; it is not competent to the tribunal of Arbitration to entertain any claim founded on them, and it follows that no claim for the prolonga- tion of the war ought to have been included in the American Case.
No nation is more interested than America in resisting the establishment of the principle that a neutral may be held liable for the prolongation of a war if a cruiser escapes from her ports, and the claim which she has put forward, being one which would be fraught with injury to her in the long run if established, being also, as I think I have shown, excluded by the words of the Treaty of Washington, and being, even if not excluded, to use the language of lawyers, " void by remoteness," will, I hope, be ultimately withdrawn.—I am, Sir, &c., Reform Club, Feb. 15, 1872. Jom CAMPBELL.
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