The apparently inadequate language in which the proposed Supplemental Article
to the Washington Treaty withdraws the Indirect Claims had been the cause of reiterated badger- ings of Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone even before the great debate of Tuesday, which brought the matter to a crisis. Yesterday week Lord Granville and Mr. Gladstone both declared that the result must be known by last Monday, as on that day the Senate would adjourn. However, Con- gress, anxious to get the matter settled, put off its adjourn- ment for a week, and on Monday both Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville were badgered again. Lord Granville declared with some pathos that he doubted whether on any great international question anybody " ever was more cross- examined" than he had been, and yet on that occasion he had read to the House a minute, vouched by General Schenck, of an interview in which the latter had declared it to be the view of himself and his Government, in suggesting the Supplemental Article, that it would debar the Arbitrators from considering the Indirect Claims. However, the House of Lords did not take kindly at all to these minutes of conversations vouching for a Minister's particular understanding of vague words, especially as that minister was not the responsible person, and Lord Rumen, who wavered once or twice as to his resolution, at last brought it on in a very full House on Tuesday, moving an address to the Crown praying for the arrest of all proceedings under the Treaty of Washington until the Indirect Claims had been with- drawn.
