TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE END OF THE INDIRECT CLAIMS.
THE Indirect Claims have, very appropriately, been in- directly considered and indirectly burked. The Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva has taken them into extra- judicial consideration, before they were formally before them, and has spontaneously declared that on general grounds totally unconnected with the construction of the Treaty of Washington, they were inadmissible as international claims. That is a decision which Great Britain did not ask for and did not support, and to which, though it is in entire agreement with her Government's expressed view, she does not defer ; indeed she has no occasion to regard it as in any way judicially binding upon her. But that is no reason why she may not avail herself of its first consequence,—the decla- ration by the Judges, with the assent of the United States, that "the Indirect Claims are, and from henceforth will be, wholly excluded from their consideration," which has been embodied in the Protocol. It is not candid of Lord Cairns to say that "the Arbitrators at Geneva have decided the particular and special point which I thought we had all agreed they should not be allowed to decide, namely, the scope and extent of the Treaty, and the question of what should pro- perly come under their cognisance by virtue of that Treaty." For, in the first 'place, the decision was not given on " the scope and intent of the Treaty" at all. The Arbitrators state that "they have arrived individually and collectively at the conclusion that these claims do not constitute, upon the principles of international law appli- cable to such cases, good foundation for an award of com- pensation or computation of damages between nations, and should, upon such principles, be wholly excluded from the con- sideration of the Tribunal in making its award." Nothing can be clearer than that that is not "a decision on the scope and intent of the Treaty," but an °biter dictum as to the general admissibility of such claims on principles of international law. If the Arbitrators had said just the opposite, namely, that such claims were admissible on general principles of international law, Great Britain would not have been bound to quarrel with the statement, though she would not have agreed with it. She would still have said, Well, whether admissible under general prin- ciples of international law or not, these claims are not admissi- ble under the Treaty of Washington.' In the next place, the decision, such as it was, was not one which we had invited or on which we had asked the Arbitrators' opinion. It was given to soothe the feelings of the Government of the United States, which had oddly professed that it brought forward these claims only in order to have them rejected. And though they were not rejected at all by the Court of Arbitration,—for the Court as a Court could only decide on what was submitted to it by both parties,—and were rejected only by the individual and collective opinion of the persons who formed the Court, still that was a sufficient loophole for Mr. Fish's pride to creep through. Whatever may be said against Lord Granville's conduct of these negotiations, no one can fairly say that he has not main- tained most tenaciously, and without the concession of a single hair's-breadth of principle, the position he so tardily took up. The feeling of the country will not only be one of intense relief that this political Frankenstein is at length disposed of,— probably to no one's satisfaction more than that of his unhappy maker,—but of just gratitude to Lord Granville, to whom most of us have been at times unfair, for the patient tenacity he has displayed in holding his ground.
And now, looking back to the history of these troublesome political Christmas-boxes, which for six months have darkened counsel by words without knowledge, let us point the moral of the whole negotiation. The most obvious and most important is for the benefit of the American Government,—namely, the great ease with which a grasping government,—or a govern- ment which puts itself into the hands of grasping subordi- nates, it matters not which,—may overreach itself, and by asking too much bring itself into anguish unspeakable, and the ridiculous position of not knowing how to get free of its own demands. We have never known anything in politics more pitiable than Mr. Fish's misery under the double neces- sity of proving at once that the Indirect Claims were in the Treaty, and yet that they were not put there from any wish of the United States to desert their historical policy by sacrificing the interests of neutrals to the interests of belligerents. He has been compelled by the universal disapprobation of all the international lawyers in Europe, to take up the ludicrous ground that the magnificent language in which he asked for these incalculable damages was a mere request to be non-suited ; and if common rumour may be trusted, he has positively staggered under a burden of anxieties. quite too heavy for him, and all of his own making. Even now, the hole at which Mr. Fish has crept out of his false position was hardly large enough for his exit, and glad as we are that he is rid of his self-made misery, it is not very easy to avoid smiling over the diplomatic make-belief of his excuse for retreating from that dismal cul-de-sac in which he has been so long bewailing his fate.
But the result is not without its moral for the British. Government also. Say what Lord Granville may on the advan- tages reaped by the seven weeks' delay before the British pro- test was made against the unexpected interpretation put upon. the Treaty of Washington by the American Government, we hold that if he were as candid as we have been when we admit that we have at times unduly depreciated his steady and wonder- fully suave tenacity of purpose, he in his turn would admit at once that it was the Press of this country which really put the Government up to their duty, and that they had been languid and even obtuse to the magnitude of the danger, till it spoke. Nor do we doubt that the Lords in their turn, by that debate which the Government so piteously deprecated, gave an impulse to the negotiation without which we should never have arrived at this successful issue. The errors of the Government have been the want of quickness in seizing the situation at first, and too great and visible a desire for success after- wards. The former error was remedied by the pressure of the Press, the latter in some degree by the stimulus of the House of Lords. Indeed we suspect a happy result would sooner have been arrived at,—would have been arrived at through the success instead of in spite of the failure of the Supplemental Treaty,— if Lord Granville had shown less of that intense desire to get the Treaty into working order, which convinced-the American. Government that nothing was so near our hearts as to save it. Nothing succeeds like success, and we willingly admit that some of our criticisms on the negotiations must have been unduly impatient, since the method we deprecated has borne such good fruit at last. Still the turn of affairs for the better really dates from the moment when the American Government saw that there were plenty of Englishmen who did not mean to make any sacrifice to save a Treaty which was in itself a liberal' concession to the United States. And though Lord Granville's complaisant inexorability has been crowned with a tardy, but perhaps on that very account not the less brilliant triumph, the plain language of the nation and the brusquerie of the Peers have furnished no insignificant quota to the forces which have contributed to this complete, though long-deferred victory.
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