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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029396458 
 
INTERNATIONAL 
 
 COURTS OF ARBITRATION 
 
INTERNATIONAL 
 
 COURTS OF ARBITRATION 
 
 THOMAS BALCH 
 
 1874 
 
 FOURTH EDITION 
 
 EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND ADDITIONAL NOTES 
 
 THOMAS WILLING BALCH 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 Allen, Lane and Scott 
 
 1912 
 
PUfcS^O 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 'P'HOMAS BALCH was born at Leesburg, 
 Loudon County, Virginia, July 23d, 182 1, 
 but belonged to a Maryland family. He was a 
 grandson of the notable Rev. Dr. Stephen Bloomer 
 Balch (Princeton, class of 1774) of Georgetown, 
 originally in the State of Maryland, but now a 
 part of the city of Washington. He was de- 
 scended from Col. Ninian Beall, to whom Lord 
 Baltimore made a grant in 1703 of the Rock 
 of Dumbarton upon which a part of the city of 
 Washington is now built. Among his ancestors 
 also, were Robert Brooke, and Colonel Thomas 
 Brooke, the latter a member of the Provincial 
 Council of Maryland, and both acting- Governors of 
 that province, the former in 1652 and the latter 
 in 1720. Mr. Balch entered Columbia College (now 
 Columbia University) in the autumn of 1838 with 
 the class of 1842, and studied there three years, 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 when illness forced him to leave. At the end of 
 his Freshman year, he received a silver medal for 
 standing at the head of his class in geometry. His 
 classmate, Abram S. Hewitt said that " Tom Balch 
 was the master of English style in the class." 
 He studied law with Stephen Cambreling and 
 was admitted to the New York Bar in 1845 ; to 
 the Philadelphia Bar in 1850 ; and on January 5th, 
 1855, upon motion of the Hon. Thomas Ewing of 
 Indiana, he was admitted to practice at the Bar 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States over 
 which his kinsman, Roger Brooke Taney, then 
 presided as Chief Justice. Besides the present 
 monograph, Mr. Balch wrote much on historic and 
 economic subjects. In 1853 he was elected a 
 member of the Council and Domestic Correspond- 
 ing Secretary of the Historical Society of Pennsyl- 
 vania. The same year he was one of the founders 
 of the Seventy-Six Society, an association formed 
 at Philadelphia for the publication of manuscripts 
 and the re-printing of rare books relating to the 
 period of the American Revolution ; and of the four 
 books published by the society, he was the editor 
 of two: The Examination of Joseph Galloway (1855) 
 and Papers relating to the Maryland Line (1857). 
 In 1855 he also published Letters and Papers re- 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. Vll 
 
 lating chiefly to the Provincial History of Pennsyl- 
 vania, a book better known as the " Shippen 
 Papers." His principal work, Les Francais en 
 Amerique, was published at Paris in 1872. He 
 was also an honorary member of the American 
 Whig Society of Princeton University, a member 
 of the Societt de la Legislation Comparee of Paris, 
 and a corresponding member of the Virginia His- 
 torical Society. From 1859 to 1873 he lived in 
 Europe, making an occasional trip home. He died 
 at his home in Philadelphia on March 29th, 1877. 
 This monograph was first published in The Law 
 Magazine and Review (London) for November, 1874 
 (page 1026), and afterwards in this country. In 
 the present reprint I have incorporated some 
 changes in the phraseology that I found in the 
 annotations in the author's own copy, on which 
 he had written "author's copy." I have added 
 also notes 17 and 24 taken from the same source; 
 the notes left by him of his interview in Novenf- 
 ber, 1864, with President Lincoln; Mr. Hunting- 
 ton's communication of April 21st, 1865, on the 
 death of Richard Cobden, to the New York Trib- 
 une; and a few other foot notes. Mr. Balch's orig- 
 inal open letter upon the Alabama question will be 
 found in the New York Tribune of May ijth, 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1865, on the fourth page and in the last column, 
 under the title : " England and the United States." 
 
 Mr. Balch's letter of March 31st, 1865, addressed 
 to Mr. Huntington, proposing an International 
 Court of Arbitration to decide the Alabama claims, 
 is reprinted in facsimile from the New York Trib- 
 une in America of May 13th, 1865, and Social 
 Science in England of March 15th, 1867, and will 
 be found facing respectively pages 12 and 16. 
 
 The notes added by the editor are enclosed in 
 brackets and marked with his initials. 
 
 THOMAS WILLING BALCH, 
 
 Editor. 
 Philadelphia, May 13th, 191 2. 
 
INTERNATIONAL 
 
 COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
INTERNATIONAL 
 COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 * JpEN years ago the grave questions involved in 
 the escape of the Alabama and her subsequent 
 depredations were the subject of much thought and 
 anxiety, and many were the suggestions made by 
 the friends of peace as to a possible disposition of 
 the controversy without resort to war. The situa- 
 tion had no encouraging aspect. Indeed, it is difficult 
 to realize to-day how very hostile and angry were the 
 two parties. The attitude assumed throughout by 
 the English Government was such as to preclude ap- 
 parently any hope of adjustment, and the American 
 Minister at London was obliged to content himself 
 at last with merely sending in a fresh claim for 
 damages in a stereotyped phraseology. As the war 
 for secession approached its close the Americans 
 began to realize somewhat the enormous losses 
 attendant upon it, not the least of which was the 
 absolute destruction of their commerce. The tern- 
 
2 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 per of the people was thoroughly roused, and any- 
 hostile demonstration at Washington would have 
 met with a hearty and unanimous response through- 
 out the country. President Lincoln not only re- 
 mained calm himself, but wisely calmed, as far as 
 he could, the popular excitement. 
 
 The most common method of settling national 
 disputes, in modern times, where resort was had to 
 arbitration, had been a reference to a monarch 
 selected by the contending parties. But this plan 
 was open to serious objections. Experience had 
 disclosed that sovereigns were not free from the 
 weaknesses of less exalted persons, and that prince 
 and peasant alike, when once appointed sole arbiter, 
 cannot resist man's innate tendency to find some 
 award which will "split the difference," and which 
 usually leaves the respective disputants equally 
 dissatisfied. The United States had refused some 
 years previously to accept such an award. A similar 
 experience would have merely further exasperated a 
 contest already sufficiently inflamed and imbittered. 
 
 Another objection was in the great difficulty of 
 finding a reigning sovereign who would prove accept- 
 able to both parties. Napoleon III. was of a rest- 
 less, yet dreamy character. He was not a statesman, 
 scarcely even a politician. He was not satisfied with 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 3 
 
 mere political intrigue, for it was his nature to con- 
 spire. In 1859, therefore, obeying in part the behests 
 of his temperament, he undoubtedly held guilty re- 
 lations with some of the Southern gentlemen then in 
 Paris, afterwards very prominent in the Confederate 
 Councils. At the time, these relations were more or 
 less matters of surmise or report. Later, they were 
 stated in detail in the Independance Beige, in the 
 winter of 1860-61, and were said to have been in 
 substance, that an appeal had been made to the 
 Emperor as head of the French race, on the ground 
 that the larger part of the white inhabitants of 
 Louisiana, of Florida, and South Carolina, and a 
 portion of them in the other States, were of French 
 extraction; that thereupon had been promised to 
 these self-constituted plenipotentiaries an immediate 
 recognition by France and England of the Seceding 
 States, in case the separation was peaceably effected, 
 and a prompt recognition as belligerents in case of an 
 armed struggle. 1 Some not very obscure intimations 
 
 1 It has been recently stated in the newspapers that the Comte 
 de Paris, in the forthcoming volumes of La Guerre Civile en Amerique, 
 will demonstrate that the French and English proclamations to this 
 effect were premature, and contrary to the recognized usages of 
 amical nations. 
 
 [Histoire de la Guerre Civile en Amerique par M. Le Comte de 
 Paris. Paris, 1874, Volume II., page 205. — T. W. B.] 
 
4 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 were given that at need something more than moral 
 and political support might be relied on. This re- 
 markable communication was doubtless no more than 
 a correcter statement of the reports of the day. At 
 all events it passed unchallenged, and subsequent 
 events led close observers to believe, that it had 
 been prepared by some one in authority. Not only 
 was the Mexican expedition undertaken, but the 
 Emperor and his ministers were actively at work, 
 meddling, plotting against the American Govern- 
 ment, until at last they went so far as to actually 
 invite England and Russia to co-operate with France 
 and insist upon an armistice. 2 
 
 This mischievous activity was probably of more 
 service than otherwise to the Northern States; but 
 it had in one way or another provoked expressions 
 of opinion from such important personages as von 
 
 2 After these lines were sent to the printers, I received from a 
 friend a cutting from the New York Express, September ist, giving 
 an account of an interview between Prince Gortschakoff and the 
 American Minister at St. Petersburg, in which the Russian Chan- 
 cellor is represented as going even further than is stated in the pub- 
 lished Diplomatic Correspondence. The article asserts that in the 
 event of any European interference, the Czar would have aided the 
 Northern States with his fleet then at New York. 
 
 [Thomas Willing Balch: The Alabama Arbitration; Philadelphia, 
 1900, page 28, et seq.: The Alaska Frontier, Philadelphia, 1903, pages 
 60-66— T. W. B.] 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 5 
 
 Bismarck, von Beust, Gortschakoff, and others, that 
 it might be fairly said that there did not remain a 
 court which was not in some way so compromised 
 that it was quite impossible to find a royal referee. 
 Another grave objection to asking a sovereign to 
 act as arbitrator lay in the fact, that a decision in 
 the case of the Alabama could not be arrived at 
 without passing in review almost all that part of 
 international law which related to neutrals. A very 
 serious matter indeed, in which the whole world 
 was interested; an occasion which ought to serve 
 for a great and marked progress, and a settlement 
 on a firmer and more just basis of the rules which 
 should govern neutrals and belligerents. The 
 United States had naturally, before their inde- 
 pendence was recognized, and at all times subse- 
 quently, maintained that the evils of a war should 
 fall on the belligerents alone. Neutrals had hard- 
 ships enough to bear in the commercial disorders 
 and the financial losses consequent upon a serious 
 disturbance of the general peace; therefore, the 
 only possible pretense for the interference of a 
 belligerent with a neutral was that of self-defense; 
 in other words, to prevent the neutral from giving 
 "aid and comfort" to the enemy, and they con- 
 tended that the sea-going vessels of a neutral were 
 
6 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 entitled to all the immunities and privileges of 
 home waters. The American Government per- 
 sistently endeavored by its diplomacy, by the 
 decisions of its judicial tribunals, by resolutions 
 in Congress, by declarations in the messages of 
 its Presidents, to have these just and righteous 
 principles recognized. In fact, it was for this that 
 their last war with Great Britain (18 12-15) was 
 fought. The United States, it was supposed, would 
 certainly press for an acceptation of these principles. 
 But it was not likely that England would ever 
 consent to relinquish her own long-cherished inter- 
 pretation of the law of the sea. "The coarse 
 dialectics of the older English judges" 3 had "mixed 
 sovereign and belligerent powers;" 4 and, inspired 
 by the spirit and precedents of the semi-barbarous 
 times and deeds of Drake and Raleigh, claimed the 
 right to sit in judgment in its own tribunals, 
 
 3 Wharton's Criminal Law. Preface to 7th ed., 1874: xviii. 
 
 4 Belligerent and Sovereign Rights as regards Neutrals during the 
 War of Secession: Boston, 1873. This is the able and learned argu- 
 ment of the Hon. William Beach Lawrence, in the case of the Cir- 
 cassian, before the Commissioners appointed under the twelfth 
 article of the Treaty of Washington, and has much professional 
 weight from the fact that the International Tribunal reversed the 
 decision of the highest American Federal Court, as reported in 2 
 Wallace's United States Supreme Court Reports, 135. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 7 
 
 according to its own forms of procedure, upon the 
 acts, the rights, the property, and even the liber- 
 ties of citizens of a neutral state. From its courts, 
 no matter how flagrant the wrong done, there was 
 no appeal except a diplomatic representation to 
 the king. It is not surprising, therefore, that the 
 claims of English captors were upheld to the ex- 
 tremest limit possible, nor that many of the 
 decisions of the English maritime tribunals were 
 rank with injustice. Even when the increasing 
 navies of other nations weighed sufficiently upon 
 England's statesmen to obtain her assent to the 
 declaration in the Treaty of Paris (April 16th, 
 1856), that an enemy's property on board neutral 
 vessels, and neutral property found in an enemy's 
 vessel, should be free from capture, except contra- 
 band of war, yet as, unfortunately, there was no 
 formal definition of what should be considered 
 contraband of war, British jurists forthwith applied 
 their own narrow interpretation, and maintained 
 that the products of a neutral state, though not 
 directly applicable to warlike uses, but which 
 might incidentally aid or assist a belligerent, were 
 within the meaning of the phrase. It was not 
 therefore probable that, if so much of the old 
 leaven remained, there would be any chance of 
 
8 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 England consenting to appear before a sovereign 
 and to submit to his award. 
 
 Those who strove and yearned for a peaceable 
 solution of these grave questions neither abandoned 
 hope nor allowed themselves to be disheartened. 
 Mr. Cobden wrote to me from Midhurst, March 
 12th, 1865: "I have great faith in the aggregate 
 intelligence of your country whenever its attention 
 is forced by adverse circumstances to a serious 
 study of politics. When the war is over you will 
 have a great financial difficulty to deal with. 
 * * * But you will soon surmount all these 
 follies when the nation finds itself in the school of 
 adversity." These words are the more noteworthy 
 in that they were written but a few days before his 
 lamented death. 
 
 Other modes of adjustment were suggested and 
 discussed. Precedents were sought for and ex- 
 amined, 5 and the research disclosed such various 
 
 5 [John Westlake : International Law: Cambridge University 
 Press, 1904, part I., pages 332 et seq. — W. Evans Darby: Inter- 
 national Tribunals: London, 1904. — John Bassett Moore: Digest of 
 International Law: Washington, 1906, volume VII., page 24 et seq. 
 — Ernest Nys: Les Etats-Unis et le Droit des Gens: Brussels, 1909, 
 pages 139-143. — Thomas Willing Balch: Le Nouveau Cynee; reim- 
 pression du text original de 1623 avec introduction et traduction anglaise: 
 Philadelphia, 1909. — J. de Louter: Het Stellig Volkenrecht: The 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 9 
 
 schemes, almost stratagems, for settling disputes 
 without recourse to war, that one was tempted to 
 assert that a philosophy directly the reverse of 
 that upheld by the author of "Leviathan" was 
 more in consonance with the nature of man. 6 After 
 mature reflection a Court of Arbitration, in sub- 
 stance that developed in the following letter, was 
 proposed to various jurists who took an interest 
 in the matter. 
 
 In November, 1864, during a short visit to 
 America, I had an opportunity of mentioning the 
 proposed Court of Arbitration to President Lin- 
 coln. He observed that the idea was a good one 
 in the abstract, but that in the then temper of the 
 American people it was neither possible nor popular. 
 In fact, as he quaintly expressed it, we were not 
 near enough to the millennium for such methods 
 of settling international quarrels. Still, he thought 
 the idea worth airing. 7 
 
 Hague, 1910, page 121 et seq. — Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart.: The 
 Modern Law of Nations and the Prevention of War in the Cambridge 
 Modern History, New York, 1910, Volume XII., pages 703-729, 954- 
 956. — Milenko R. Vesnitch: Deux Precurseurs Frangais du Pacifisme 
 et del' Arbitrage International: Paris, 191 1. — L. Oppenheim: Interna- 
 tional Law, second edition, London, 191 2, Volume I., page 58. — T.W.B.] 
 
 6 Libertas. Molesworth's ed., 1839-1845, ii., 157 et seq. 
 
 7 [Among my father's papers I find the following notes written in 
 
IO INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 A draft outline of the proposed Court of Arbi- 
 tration was refused by more than one editor; but 
 at last Mr. Greeley, who feared no unpopularity 
 
 1872, in Europe, of this interview with President Lincoln. I have 
 compared this extract carefully with the original manuscript. 
 
 "In November, 1864, I had (at the request of General Banks), a 
 long interview with Mr. Lincoln in which he questioned me, then 
 lately returned from Europe, largely about affairs on this side of 
 the Atlantic. The Mexican Empire he ridiculed and said that he 
 considered it 'a pasteboard concern on which we won't waste a man 
 nor a dollar. It will soon tumble to pieces and maybe, bring the 
 other down with it.' * * * In speaking of England, I suggested 
 an arbitration court as possible at a future day. He thought it 'a 
 very amiable idea, but not possible just now as the millennium is 
 still a long way off.' But he added: 'There is no possible risk of a 
 quarrel with England as we have enough on our hands. One quarrel 
 is enough for a nation or a man at a time.' As to the proposed court 
 of arbitration he said: 'Start your idea. It may make its way in 
 time as it is a good one.' On arriving in London, December 25th, 
 '64, I spoke of it to several friends, but found no one to treat it other 
 than as a conceit of a well-meaning, weak-minded enthusiast, except 
 Mr. Cobden to whom I wrote, as he was out of town. From him I 
 received more than one kind letter, and it was stated in the New 
 York Tribune in a letter from Paris, though he never said so to me, 
 that but for his untimely death, he would have brought the subject 
 before the House of Commons. 
 
 "In America I was met in a less satisfactory manner. The Civil 
 War was near its end, and the passions aroused by it were at their 
 highest. I received more than one angry rebuff, and sometimes the 
 contempt which the idea excited was not always civil. Some good 
 people went so far as to say that I had lived so long abroad that I 
 
 had become a ' Britisher.' Not encouraging for my idea of a 
 
 mild mannered way of cutting the knot of difficult national questions. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. II 
 
 where a cause was, as he thought, entitled to a 
 hearing, gave it a place in the columns of the New 
 York Tribune, May 13th, 1865. 8 The letter was 
 
 "I did not, as I have already observed, know Mr. Greeley per- 
 sonally, but through my friend, Mr. W. H. Huntington, the then 
 correspondent at Paris of the New York Tribune, I obtained access 
 to its columns and had a hearing for the scheme [May 13th, 1865]. 
 
 "Social Science [in England] reprinted the letter March 15th, 1867. 
 The Courier du Dimanche, through Monsieur Prevost-Paradol, and 
 on one occasion the Journal des Debats, lent a kindly assistance. But 
 the project received a powerful impulse from a lecture by Mr. James 
 Lorimer, the Professor of Public Law and the Laws of Nations in the 
 University of Edinburgh. After which the idea took root and grew 
 and now the Tribunal at Geneva is hailed by publicists and states- 
 men as an international benefit. But it is mainly due to Mr. Greeley 
 that the idea was not strangled at its birth." 
 
 James Lorimer was born in 1818 at Aberdalgie, Perth, Scot- 
 land, and died February 13th, 1890, at Edinburgh; he wrote several 
 valuable books on social science and international law, and was a 
 founder in 1873 of I'Institut de Droit International. PreVost-Paradol, 
 the brilliant author of La France Nouvelle (1868), and a member of 
 I'Academie Francaise, was the leading writer in the Journal des Debats 
 against the Empire. In the days of the Imperial censorship, as some 
 one said, "Prevost-Paradol excellait avec J. J. Weiss dans Part de 
 tout faire enterdre sans tout exprimer." Subsequently, when Ollivier 
 assumed the responsibilities of Government in 1870 under the liberal 
 Empire, PreVost-Paradol accepted the post of Minister to Wash- 
 ington.— T. W. B.] 
 
 8 [This letter will be found in the New York Tribune of May 13th, 
 1865, on the fourth page, in the upper right hand corner under the 
 title, "England and the United States: a letter from Thomas Balch." 
 — T. W. B.] 
 
12 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 addressed to the able and conscientious corres- 
 pondent of that journal at Paris, Mr. W. H. Hunt- 
 ington, and was as follows: — 
 
 "Paris, March 31st, 1865. 
 
 "My Dear Sir, — You asked me to put in writ- 
 ing the observations which I made to you yester- 
 day touching the outstanding questions between 
 England and the United States. I should be sorry 
 to make you read all that you so kindly listened to. 
 It would be to tax you rather too severely. But 
 the current of my remarks was to this effect: 
 
 "I. That both England and the United States 
 preferred claims which, if not judiciously man- 
 aged, might and perhaps would lead to war. 
 
 "II. That the American claims were chiefly the 
 depredations of the Alabama, whilst it seemed 
 from the tenor of Mr. Layard's recent speech, that 
 the British claims were also such as to rest upon 
 questions of law. Neither set of claims was strictly 
 national; they were rather those of individuals, 
 merchants, shipowners, and others. 
 
 "III. That as to such claims, war was a bar- 
 barous manner of enforcing them; that the most 
 successful war would after all be a most expensive 
 and unsatisfactory process of litigation; and that 
 the civilized and Christian way of ascertaining 
 
NgWYOBK DAILY TRIBUNE. SATURDAY. MA* 13, 1865 -TRIPLE SHEET. 
 
 h iummMMiiir^ 
 
 ebowt tW l*V«r «* 
 lattteywmH "ssareVto 
 mled ana ton err* that* 
 nth the term! fifit ohnd 
 r tree. They f«k It for 
 ai wonM be aroepted. and 
 e. It li very do obtf ul If • 
 o Trill be found at Greess- 
 
 i g events of the -war, and 
 negotiations, may be Til- 
 
 ths citizens of Raleigh 
 hernial) at Clayton'! Sta- 
 ir securing protection to 
 36 and all the asrenta'ef 
 he Mayor 'and tho City 
 persona and properly of 
 
 publication of the order 
 ? and all hif guilty aoeonv 
 
 Kid otbert, and tbe place 
 Hocnm, and subsequently 
 tered the same day, the 
 
 mansion. or "palace" of 
 
 sueps-nslon of hostilities, 
 rrrendcr. At this time, 
 with an immense amount 
 . eras passing from Don' 
 I Salisbury toward tbe 
 
 ass. Bnerman's staffwas* 
 jer to T>nrhsm'e Station 
 i, the separating line of 
 ■tr* from Gen. Sherman' 
 evening, bat none 
 
 Ceo. Johnston, 
 a the front, and orders 
 Jtj to more early in the 
 
 r to more was oounter- 
 * runtt that Gen. Sher- 
 
 tVwrt "to rroelve the 
 artcn's Army." 
 -rrmo*\ the Yadxin, six 
 '.i^i before. 
 
 ! rtaff proceeded by train 
 Durham's Station. Be- 
 -*>port of the assaasina- 
 fcnown at headquarters, 
 fnlated In the street and 
 A messenger was lin- 
 lam's Station with the 
 an, who conrmuclcated 
 
 The latter General is 
 coked at the mtelligenes 
 > the heaViest blow the 
 
 SHERMANS ARMY. 
 
 (sMlatmttstrtfccMmreh Uwar4 Bichaaemd 
 Troai Oei {h»dsl Com stKmdcnL 
 
 Anicx o? Gr.or.ciA. keab the Nel-sb BrvTB, > 
 April 38, 1865. J 
 
 The day broke in the most delightful manner. 
 The son shone forth after the beery rain of the previous 
 night ra all his splendor, and gave to the oool morning 
 air his brightest and most cheery glances. So opened 
 the day on which the left wing of the grand army com- 
 menced its Joyful march toward home— sweet home. 
 ■When at daylight tholr tents were struck, and the 
 bngle gaily sounded the " forward, " of all that host who 
 paradly marohed beneath the •■ bonnlo bine which Dears 
 n single star," there was not one whose bosom did not 
 swen with pride and emlt3tlon as be thought that he 
 was marching North crowned with victory. 
 
 Joy beamed from every eye when home was in the 
 mind, and every eye looked Joyful only to bo dimmed _ 
 the melancholy tragedy at •Washington was reoalled by 
 the overworking brain. Yet as hope and Joy are the 
 ruling passions af tho successful the moments of grief. 
 Cavalry were met outside Ihongh poignant, were few. Joyfully then the Twentieth 
 Corps, which led the advance of the Army of Georgia, 
 marched from their camps on a march which oannot 
 lint be barren of tbe usual topics of interest which 
 spring from the movements of an army, and yet will be 
 fruitful In others more novel end as entertaining. How 
 as sent In by Gen. John- *ne troops are received on the route, what are the senti- 
 ments of the inhabitants upon the great social problem 
 of re-union whloh now perplexes the profotradeet minds, 
 when the army wiH arrive at the^prlnerpal towns' on Its 
 way, whea tt will Anally reach Its destination at Alex- 
 andria, and a thousand other Itenn viloa osnnot be an- 
 ticipated, wlfi ft! the sate* In tU ^biSe Bind which 
 has seen daring row* yean aOea p hKt by to and ru- 
 mors of war. 
 
 An incident occurred to-day wbieh 'Ifttttrttsa the 
 eagerness of the African to give n» inrtriigenoe whether 
 he himself has It or not. As one of the divisions of tbe 
 Twentieth Corps was marching toward the Hens* Biver 
 npon tho Oxford Pond, the General Commanding 
 costed a good-honored colored brother who was toting 
 nlong himself a his handle toward P-alelgh, withe go-* 
 lite good morning, a-d the following little ooBoqtry toot 
 place, affording much amusement to the otahT and 
 yours truly." 
 
 General— "TJowfnris it my man, to the bridge!" 
 African — '"Bout seven mile I eess, str.* 
 Qcwral— " It'a nearly eight, is'nt it* 
 African — "Yeas sir, nearly eight.* 
 S-of Officer— "Is n't it most nine f 
 Africa/7 — " Most nine, sir, yeas sir.* 
 
 1 
 
 between Gen. Johnston, 
 
 mptonu No member of 
 
 sent. 
 
 •ok from the front, but 
 
 are any information as 
 
 the conference. It was 
 
 reoad conference would 
 
 : staff left by the train at 
 tie place where the con- 
 4 been held, five miles 
 
 0. ShermairB elslef 1 * M. 
 
 <b* President Was {tab 
 
 Vngr a a at Raleigh; • ' ' ' 
 
 second' day, Vns private 
 
 ber of Gen. Sherman's 
 
 el Secretary of •War, J. tmation. 
 
 1th Johnston, instead of 
 
 tbetr warirka hands. Let the United Staffs bawaro of 
 
 the Southern ladies. 
 
 On tie 3d of May, 1863, the troops now oompoelos 
 the Twonfcietb Corps (then the Eleventh and Twelfth 
 Corps), fought the last day's fight at CbanoeUoraville. 
 
 On the 3d of May, 1864, the same troops crossed a 
 State lino passing from Bridgeport, Ala., to Shell 
 Mound. Tenn. This was the openingof the Atlanta Cam- 
 paign. 
 
 On the 3d of May. lBflS, the same troops oross another 
 State hne. passing from North Carolina Into Virginia. 
 
 Thus it will be seen that this day has been an event- 
 ful one with the Twentieth Corps. 
 
 All along tbe road on which the aimy marches, little 
 knots of negroes confederate, many of them from mere 
 Idle cariosity, others from higher .motives, touohlng 
 upon their ideas' of freedom. These persons are a 
 source of unfailing merriment to the soldiers who treat 
 them vary kindly. They will cbeur for whatever they 
 are told, and in ordor to be sure of being on the right 
 side, they will hurrah for the Kunion, as thoy call the 
 Union, and Jem Davis in one and the same breath. 
 Some of thorn, through nedect of their masters, are 
 more ignorant than I had Imagined it was possible for 
 a human creature to bo. Some of the bands amuse 
 themselves by discoursing music to these colored audi 
 tors, and to-day a very funny incident happened upon 
 one of these outbursts ot musio. 
 
 A brigade band, seeing a large gathering of Africans 
 by the side of the road in advance, reserved its musio 
 until exactly opposite them aud then commenoed a tune 
 with a tremendous blast of Its trumpets and a thunder- 
 ing thump of its bass drum. The effeot was amusing. 
 Like tbe dried leaves of Autumn before a hurricane, 
 they ted a from a hideous and many-torlgoed monster. 
 One* arrived at a safe distance front the beast they hid 
 behind tsssat and rtewod, with aaaUons eyes, tie cause, 
 af (hetr dims. j .* 
 
 , The Fotrteetofo. fCorps t-neempsd for tho tight near 
 Oxford, aad the eoth eroosd Wnhramborcegga. 
 
 Nsja tub lUxmn Ernst, Vs., JsTsy-4, IMS.. 
 
 'This morning both Corp* reaobed tho Boanoke 
 IUrer, at Tsyior's Ford. Joined tholr pontoon trains, 
 forming a bridjrs is; yards long, and crossed, the Four- 
 teenth Corps thenoe taking the road to Nottoway Cross- 
 Beads via Boydtawn and Lrivistown, aad the Twen- 
 tieth making for Blaoh's and White's. 
 
 Thsdsy passed without muok lnoldant, both aom- 
 minds making good marohes. 
 
 Nlil ihb Bio Noftowat Btvhb. Va., May B, 1855. 
 
 As the army neare Richmond it 1 begins to 
 grow impatient, Home becomes near and more vivid 
 In the mind's oyo, and hearts beat more longingly for 
 
 Arreat of Oate of the Kaanmttarss IKara'erera 
 — Industry «f she Japanese Police— A 
 ItloOtra Delilah oad at Aold Outlast— 
 nia Public I. • ccmlea at Yokohama. 
 
 From Onr 8s«clsl Corrnpoivtent. 
 
 KiSiCAWj, Japan, Jan. 91, 1863. 
 My last letter gave your readers some account 
 of the murdor at Kamakura of the English officers at- 
 tached to the 20th Begiment in' garrison at this port. 
 It appeared when I wrote as if this affair was to take 
 the course of the many that had preceded it. There 
 were the enstomary protestations of regret on the part 
 of the native officials, tbe old promises to be diligent in 
 search of the offenders were renewed, but so often baf- 
 fled as we had been before th»y were no lopger trusted- 
 It Is, indeed, gratifying for onoa to say something 
 commendatoiy of an honest purpose in our Jspanese 
 rulers; an honesty begotten of pojjoy if you will, but in 
 the work it has wrought none tho less gratifying. 
 Briefly, then, after fourteen foreigners have been killed, 
 and sevorsl more been wounded, out of our little com- 
 munity, at the hands of Japanese assassins, during the 
 brief six treaty years of our intercourse with this peo- 
 ple, we have at last a murderer brought to Justice, 
 . Fortunatelr, without doubt, for the good issue of this 
 aff js-, Sir Rutherford Alcock, the British Minister, was 
 on the eve of departure for England, and he duly repre- 
 sented to the Japanese Government their embarrassed 
 position If he returned to his country bearing news o 
 this fresh outrage, and their inefficiency to prevent or 
 
 So we had the satisfaction of knowing that thef tn9 , orBd onca at rome rhe 80 idiers eagerly discuss 
 bridge was about seven, nearly eight and most nine* the Jn-ospects of their early muster out of the service, 
 
 I and universally hope that thoy -will not bo detained any 
 
 miles off, 
 
 H*d a few more questions been ssked it wonld dor.bt- j 10r .g er than is absolutely necessary, 
 less havo been found that tho distance of the bridge was | Sinoe kaTi n g Ealcigh tho Twentieth Corps has 
 so great that there was no hope of reaching it that day. J marc h d 111 miles in six days, going into' camp nearly 
 
 always at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and the Fourteenth 
 Corps has done equally well. Thero is no trouble in 
 marching troops toward home. By Tuesday noon the 
 Army of Ccorgia will bo enoamped aronnd Rich- 
 mond. ' J. C. W. 
 
 It was nevertheless reached and passed before "the com 
 mand halted for the night. 
 
 On the north bank of the Nense, whore the Oxford 
 road crosses it, are several mills. The largest is de- 
 vpted to the manufacture of paper, and during the war 
 the property changed hands for the sum of»*50,O0O, a 
 clear gain to the purohaser, at the present rate of Con- 
 fodBrato money, of three mills and several hundred 
 aorea of land. 
 
 Abont half a mile beyond the Nense the command 
 halted, having mnrched 14J miles, and repaired tho 
 bridge across the Nense, a labor occupying two hours 
 At the point of stoppage there is a little house, owned 
 trya man whom at the beginning of the war had told 
 that tie Yankees did not know how to fire a gun. His 
 native shrewdness, despite a deplorable lenoraT.ee, had, 
 however, made the reply that It was queer it the 
 Yankees; who made all the guns,-dld-net know-how to 
 shoot them. 
 
 MOitof ihs caoniry passed to-day ft ftf a very poor 
 character, the son being gerforafly ef a sandstone for- 
 
 / 
 
 the*' 
 i "srt . 
 
 s. rtsented MmssVevT, Another fine da y fa^»«*s*ing,. *tarti«g,..at 
 and. Between 8 and 9 P *" '""' ^ b 7 8o ' ol '« 15 te the -afternoon the troops were in 
 
 Raleigh, Gen. Shermanl 0MBJ,at s ' ttI ** »*' 'lariaR starched. twen(r/-two miles 
 
 eheook proceeding (with * itho,u «J»rfa»oiBg more than nsoal fatigue, owing 
 
 to the exoajhssce of the roads. 
 
 Perisot order raigned along the lines of the Twentieth 
 Corpe. What oooarredin the Fourteenth I am un&bje 
 fco ap.j u it is marching npon a different road, 
 atr e7tte«lrfflb^'aa* ?' *»• of the taltsof Gen. Geary's BivuvoB-sraa at the 
 rasa the Foeamaweotaasi ^* 1Je ^*^ l T " > " j » m Bebel (jsartermaatar who had evi- 
 
 >r) to Beaufort, tn rmut 
 
 ispstches. 
 
 eeming the surrender of 
 
 through meaner* of the 
 
 and tender srsttaWesa* 
 
 •syer •»»»• aflaoreughly 
 
 iaatlr, .been *. thorough Seceesionjsh, ^Eis.fth^push. . -X Suocees (lUlnptajtteadoqrarms uatilthe "Eman 
 hieh?snaier wainamed : " Babal" BndhifaTo»!t««aw! f'!* ati ! >B " npli^jbao^iae^ffeotive. 
 
 FROM JAPAN. 
 
 BN**XAIU> 
 
 AND 
 
 STATca. 
 
 TRB DNITBO 
 
 A I<etter frota Thomas Balcb. 
 
 Visa, Mareh 31, 1881, 
 
 Mt Deab Sib: You asked me to put in 
 writing the observations whloh I made to you yesta* 
 da/ touching the outstanding qnestlonstetweenlngi- 
 land and the United States. I should bo sorry to malm 
 you rend all that you to kindly listened to. It wools' 
 bo to tax voj rather too severely. Bat the ourreat el 
 my remarks was to this effect: 
 
 T. Thut both Engtand and the United States preferred 
 claims whloh, if not judiciously managed, might mi 
 perhaps would lead to war. 
 
 IX That the American claims ware ohiefly the d#pre> 
 dations of the Alabama, while it seemed from the tenea 
 of Mr. Layard's speech the other evening, that the 
 British claims were' also snoh as to rest upon question* 
 of law. Neither set of claims was strictly nationals 
 they were rather those of indirlddalr. merohants, shift* 
 owners and others, 
 
 HX That as to snoh claims, war was a barbarous 
 manner of enforcing them; that-'the most suocesstot 
 war would after all be a meat expensive and nnsatisv 
 factory process of litigation; and that the etviUsed ana 
 Christian way of ascertaining tbetr validity and extant 
 would be by arbitration. 
 
 17. That the best manner of composing enen a court 
 of arbitration would b«, that each party should select 
 "some competent jurist, these two to seleot an umpire. 
 The claims to be presented, proved and argued before 
 this Court, whose decisions should be final and witn* 
 
 punish the oft recurring wrongs of this kind.' The J out appeal. 
 
 Japanese beside had freshly In their minds the cost to 
 them of their former snpineneas, and with all these in- 
 Susnoes bearing on them seem for once to hare aban- 
 doned their traditional policy of procrastination and 
 a barren display of aeal that .brings no fruit. They 
 frtwaieed iwsparSsg efforts to ferret out the assassins, 
 and set •> ojioe to vrotkahvativ And now the sequence 
 of erenU tmravettag «tae whole story of this doable 
 murder, thread by thread, srovea the truth of all we 
 have heard of the thoroughness ef Japanese espionage, 
 proving also that the fame exertion on the part ot tbe 
 Government before would hare nredttosa a like result. 
 It convinced as, moreover, If- we seeded -oanvlBoinp, 
 that li was no idle boast of the Japanese people that tbe 
 murderers of Huasken, of Camus, of Elohardson, and 
 others, were weE known to the Yedo Government, and 
 that it oould at any moment hare laid its hand upou 
 them had they seen fit to do so. In Huesken's oase es- 
 pecially (tbe late Secretary of the Uhited States Lega- 
 tion) the midnight murder was a matter of epen jest and 
 boast, 
 An examination into the Kamakura assassinations 
 
 i P alitor 
 
 V. That snoh a proposition, proceeding from our 
 Government, would without doubt receive the ooaxrten 
 nance and support of all intelligent Englishmen, It i S 
 true, that some of the speeches recently made in 
 meat about ns and Canada are of a nature to 
 •nob expectations. On the other hand, it nrott bae uaav t 
 in mind, that these gentlemen form a class opart, 'tinst 
 it Is their politioal fal th to believe and say unseemly 
 things of Republican institutions, of the men, habits oft' 
 life and principles of action developed under thenM, 
 Birt it was long ago that the wises* of men gave as tier 
 rMatareof snoh people, and .the experience of ' 
 has confirmed his Judgment. 
 
 VX Snob a prepdsittan front our Gonanxnsnt 
 at once qtdat all the foolish ajjaras. wHafe hajs.'oras/o 
 pear to have taken possession of so many persons Isss 
 England. Ifwonld also uphold and strengthen all tit* , 
 advocates of progress. It wonld give greater foaea. taw 
 their arguments in favor of Just reforms and more liar 
 erty; and this not only in Great Britain, but through* 
 out Europe. The abandonment of tbe old Bystem of arbsV 
 tradon by a referenoe to,a Sovereign, more or less mwf 
 
 i*«a 
 
 was promptly begun by the native authorities, and the fit from. tho very nature of his position, and the intree 
 British Consul, Dr. Winchester, who is desorvlng great 8 Jnction of a tribunal almost republican in its charaati 
 oredit for the aeal and intelligence that accompanitd his 2 ter, whose deoisions would have a weight as precedents* 
 
 labor. 
 
 On inquiry witnesses were found who saw the mur- 
 dered officers before life was extinct; others who saw 
 their murderers in wait by .the roadside prepared for 
 the fray. The priests Of the great temple of HaohlmasC 
 in whose avenue of oentnry-old pines the bodies were 
 found, remembered two men armed with swords who 
 worshiped at their temple a .brief intorval before the 
 assault. A boy and girl who came upon the assassins as 
 .they lay in wait for their victims were warned off as 
 "something horrid was about to happen." A peasant 
 in the field heard the noise of the attack, and looking 
 
 Universal ScifTrzthje. 
 
 To the Editor of Tne N. Y. Tribune. 
 
 Sib: An old Democrat, whose patriotism must 
 excuse his lack of education, and who could never be- 
 lieve that tho Slave Fower wss determined to "rule or I upfrom his worksawaman with adrawn sword running 
 ruin," until the attempt was made to force the Lcoomp |foy the side of a mounted foreigner dealing blows as he 
 ton Constitution upon Freemen, wishes to state what he Bran, till the foreigner fell from, his saddle. The deed it 
 knows to bo the Eentimcnts of all Loyalists with tvhom 
 he, as a business man, has come in contact. 
 
 Believing that " the convictions ' of Loyal Ancrlcant 
 are e (ways jright," the predominant -one now is. that 
 
 "KlXEOES AUE ENTITLED TO THE ELECTIVE FbAS 
 
 CH1SE" for the foQoWiag reasons, vis: 
 
 L By evidencing tholr universal loyally in offering up 
 their lives on the battte-field in defense of our asd'(*et> 
 
 ,, ^FiIit5i«,B,;c. k May 1, 1865. ' TX By shielding, feeding and protecting our escaping 
 "prisoners from the South,' "sjid", Training them never to 
 'trust a white man, but always to trust a black man, 
 'while in the disloyal States. 
 
 TIT, The prejudice' against them Is local, caused by 
 their servile condition here. The Haytiea ambassador 
 receives the same consideration in foreign lands as is 
 aooordtd to white omboseadors. 
 
 IT. In 1861 "Slavery Abolishment" was called the 
 "rhapsodies of Wendell Phillips;" in 1865 it was styled 
 the "Statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln." 
 
 lUtift Aan-J-' — "■■B 
 
 aebf was clear enough) the . unsuspecting officers were 
 riding home from a pleasure trip in the country, wnen, 
 without havjaggivon any provocation, they were sur- 
 prised by, men in ambush 'and slain. Their assailants 
 hodescaned,' leaving no olue behind except a lost shoe 
 or wooden cleg.' and a bat with a letter In it whloh gave 
 uo individual Information. 
 
 '.^r^nate^.^r^tlyo.ctSlclals were faithful In their 
 worX.ond^rracejt the. fleeing man, or one of them, to *a 
 neighboring village where' he' had supped ; they discord 
 ered, where he had pressed the Blvor RoMngo. on the 
 road to Yedo, at an obscure ferry. The sellers of the 
 shoe and the hat were found in a quarter of the city o r 
 Yedo frequented by the north country rouins, or out- 
 laws. Here the trail was for a timo lost, and if the 
 murderers had used ordinary discretion they would 
 probably have escaped. 
 
 A few days subsequently at a village thirty or forty 
 miles from, Yedo on the road to Oasaca, three armed 
 Jap&aese entered the house of a wealthy farmer, and 
 
 porience, aud impartiality for. a position so dignilhrd 
 * x all events, there are. roan* omluen* — 
 ery way qualified for-tht3 high do _ 
 hare in'my mind j eye a Swiss publicist, who, often 
 
 with threats of violence robbed him of a large snin of 
 
 '• , .. !l»,>j';i.'>.ijir Jmonay. Thwrobbers , were followed, and two of them 
 
 VX lYhen viotory was won. another g>BJ$oatoitvJw««> arrested: tho.th4rd.j«fio» s> eerera strnmtle, as- 
 
 an authority heretofore unknown as expositions of In*, 
 terno.tional law, would be no trifling event in the march, 
 of "Democratic Freed6m. 
 
 VIL Snob a proposition wonld also be in accord wltb 
 our traditional policy of peace and good wall toward ' 
 men. / 
 
 The most serions objection that has been urged, so 
 far as I h*ve heard, against such* a Court of Arbitral 
 ?ion. isthe difficulty of finding gentlemen not already JL 
 biased bv their feelings. or in some way committed in, 
 'heir opinions. 
 
 This objection applies, however, in a measure to sJF kw 
 hnman tribunals, it would apply to arbitration by jfc) Ba\ 
 sovereign, and would leave us no other solution tnsjti |ta 
 the dread arbitration of war. For myself. I onnnct'bsj 1 " 
 licve that there are not to be had in Fbgland sard* kk 
 A.merica, gentlemon of the .requisite learning, eav ^ 
 
 t men' 
 ty. T 
 
 bavin? filled the most responsible stations at home is. 
 now worthily representing his peop'o in their most InT? 
 
 Eortantdiploroatrb post. The deoisions rendered by 
 im and geutlomeu like hhn would be such as two. Ml 
 ? refit and free nation? oould accept with satiafaotionlT k i 
 dare say ho has fxieudW feelings toward tho Republic, s> ' 
 but he cannot be "anting In like sentiments for the oW ; *i 
 champion of liberty. The preferences' of such enUBj*#e/P%| 
 erted statesmen could not possibly be of a charaotfir. to b 
 inflaeuce their Judgments, and tile parties most Tnte* ' "l 
 estod nrhihijwell be oontent to abide their award. ** .. 
 BaTfore me, my dear air, years sincerely, ..up 
 
 W. K. HU ^TDtOTQS. Cq.^kris. ^r ^LCa. ^ 
 
 nB. LINCOLN. 
 
 ft 
 
 A T,ft!oT from Ilini lEiihorto I r-publitbed, - 
 
 GUTBIXIII BtTLUTT esq., KcicOrleavs, La. ..' , jF ,4' 
 
 Sir:, .Tho copy'of a letter addreased to, yomv 
 solf by Mr. Thomas J. Duranri has been shown to men. 
 The writer appears to be an able, a dispassionate, and 
 an entirely sincere man. The first part of the letter is 
 devoted to an effort to show that the aeco^slcu ordSt 
 nance ofXonisiana uas adopted Rgrtmet the will of 1 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 1 3 
 
 their validity and extent should be by arbitration. 
 
 "IV. That the best manner of composing such a 
 Court of Arbitration would be, that each party 
 should select some competent jurist, those two to 
 select an umpire. The claims to be presented, 
 proved and argued before this Court, whose de- 
 cisions should be final and without appeal. 
 
 "V. That such a proposition, proceeding from 
 our Government, would, without doubt, receive 
 the countenance and support of all intelligent 
 Englishmen. It is true that some of the speeches 
 recently made in Parliament about us and Canada 
 are of a nature to discourage such expectations. 
 On the other hand, it must be borne in mind that 
 these gentlemen form a class apart; that it is their 
 political faith to believe and say unseemly things 
 of Republican institutions, of the men, habits of 
 life, and principles of action developed under 
 them. But it was long ago that the wisest of men 
 gave us the measure of such people, and the ex- 
 perience of mankind has confirmed his judgment. 
 
 "VI. Such a proposition from our Government 
 would at once quiet all the foolish alarms which 
 have, or appear to have, taken possession of so 
 many persons in England. It would also uphold 
 and strengthen all the advocates of progress. It 
 
14 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 would give greater force to their arguments in 
 favor of just reforms and liberty; and this not 
 only in Great Britain, but throughout Europe. 
 The abandonment of the old system of arbitration 
 by a reference to a Sovereign, more or less unfit 
 from the very nature of his position, and the intro- 
 duction of a tribunal, almost republican in its 
 character, whose decisions would have a weight 
 as precedents, an authority heretofore unknown as 
 expositions of international law, would be no tri- 
 fling events in the march of Democratic Freedom. 
 
 "VII. Such a proposition would also be in accord 
 with our traditional policy of peace and goodwill 
 towards men. 
 
 "The most serious objection that has been urged, 
 so far as I have heard, against such a Court of 
 Arbitration, is the difficulty of finding gentlemen 
 not already biased by their feelings or in some 
 way committed in their opinions. 
 
 "This objection applies, however, in a measure, 
 to all human tribunals; it would apply to arbitra- 
 tion by a sovereign, and would leave us no solution 
 other than the dread arbitrament of war. For 
 myself, I cannot believe that there are not to be 
 had in England and America gentlemen of the 
 requisite learning, experience, and impartiality for 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 1 5 
 
 a position so dignified and useful. At all events, 
 there are many eminent men in Europe in every 
 way qualified for this high duty. I have in my 
 mind's eye a Swiss publicist, 9 who, after having 
 filled the most responsible stations at home, is now 
 worthily representing his people in their most 
 important diplomatic post. The decisions ren- 
 dered by him and gentlemen like him would be 
 such as two great and free nations could accept 
 with satisfaction. I dare say he has friendly feel- 
 ings towards the Republic, but he cannot be want- 
 ing in like sentiments for the old Champion 
 of Liberty. The preferences of such enlightened 
 statesmen could not possibly be of a character to 
 influence their judgments, and the parties most 
 
 9 I may now say that this referred to that most worthy, high- 
 minded gentleman, Dr. Kern, formerly President of the Federal 
 Council, but then Minister to France. 
 
 [Johann Conrad Kern was born in 1808 at Berlingen in the Canton 
 of Thurgau, and died in 1888. After beginning the study of theology 
 at the University of Bale, he studied law at the Universities of Berlin, 
 Heidelberg, and Paris. In 1833 he sat in the Swiss Diet, then in 
 the National Assembly, and in 1837 he was made President of the 
 Supreme Tribunal. In 1848, with Henri Druey of the Canton of 
 Vaud, he drew up a draft constitution for Switzerland, which, after 
 being debated and amended by the Diet, was adopted by the cantons 
 and proclaimed September 12, 1848. In 1850 he was chosen Presi- 
 dent of the Federal Council. In 1857 he was appointed Swiss Min- 
 ister at Paris and held that post until 1883. — T. W. B.] 
 
1 6 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 interested might well be content to abide their 
 award. 
 
 "Believe me, my dear sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 "THOMAS BALCH." 
 
 The publication of this letter proved very con- 
 clusively, that whatever might be the merits of the 
 proposed Court of Arbitration, it certainly was not 
 popular in the United States. Two years later the 
 accomplished editor of Social Science, Mr. West- 
 lake, was induced by an English jurist, 10 for whose 
 
 10 [Professor James Lorimer. 
 
 John Westlake, was born at Lostwithiel, Cornwall, February 4th, 
 1828. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he 
 was sixth Wrangler and sixth in the first class Classical Tripos. He 
 became a barrister, Lincoln's Inn, 1854, and a Bencher of Lincoln's 
 Inn, 1874. In 1869, with Rolin-Jaequemyns of Brussels and Asser 
 of Amsterdam, he founded the Revue de Droit International et de 
 Legislation Comparee at Brussels, of which he has ever since been an 
 editor; and in 1873 he was one of the founders of /' Institut de Droit 
 International. In 1877 the University of Edinburgh gave him the 
 degree of LL.D. {honoris causa). In 1885 he was elected to Parlia- 
 ment for the Romford Division of Essex. In 1888 Oxford University 
 conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. {honoris causa), and the same 
 year he was chosen to fill the Whewell chair of International Law at 
 Cambridge University, which he held until 1908. From 1900 to 
 1906 he was one of the British members of The Hague International 
 Court of Arbitration. In 1895 he was President of I'Institut de Droit 
 International and to-day he is the Honorary President of that asso- 
 ciation. In 1858 he published A Treatise on Private International 
 
202 
 
 SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 [March 15, 18C7. 
 
 March 15. 1SB7 ] 
 
 'seefrtirsclEweSr-. 
 
 201 
 
 F Nfl l .A WD AND - TnE -J DNIT EP^SIAXES. ■ 
 
 Wte havKbeerKaskad toVreipublieh the following ^msprtaw. letter* 
 addressed KtheK^\t^Nh^m^o\Trib V ji}t-^ 
 
 Paris, May 1?. 1865 
 " Mt Dear Sib,— Yon asked me to put in writing the observation* which 
 1 made to you yesterday touching the outstanding questions between England 
 and the United States I should be sorry to make you read all that you so 
 kindly listened to. It would be to tax you rathe'r too severely. But the 
 current of my remarks was to this effect:— 
 
 I That both England and the United States preferred claims which, if not 
 judiciously managed, might and perhaps would lead to war 
 
 II That the American claims were chiefly the depredations of the Alabama, 
 while it seemed from the tenor of Mr Layard's recent speech, that the British 
 claims were also such as to rest upon questions of law. Neither set of claims 
 was strictly national, they were rather those of individuals, merchants, ship- 
 owners, and others. 
 
 III. That as to such claims, war was a barbarous manner of enforcing them, 
 that the most successful war would after all be a most expensive and unsatis-' 
 factory process of litigation; and that the civilized and christian way of 
 ascertaining their validity and extent would be by arbitration. 
 
 IV. That the best manner of composing such a court of arbitratfon would 
 be, that each party should select some competent jurist, those two to select an 
 umpire. The claims to be presented, proved, and argued before this Court, 
 whose decisions should be final and without appeal. 
 
 V. That such a proposition, proceeding from our Government, would without 
 doubt, receive the countenance and support of all intelligent Englishman. It is 
 true, that some of the speeches recently made in Parliament about us and 
 Canada are of a nature to discourage such expectations. On the other hand 
 it must be borne in mind, that these gentlemen form a class apart, that it is 
 their political faith to believe and say unseemly things of Republican institu- 
 tions, of the men, habits of life, and principles of action developed under them 
 But it was long ago that the wisest of men gave us the measure of such people 
 and the experience of mankind has confirmed his judgement 
 
 VI. Such a proposition from our Government would at once quiet all the 
 foolish alarms which have, or appear to have, taken possession of so many per- 
 sons in England. It would also uphold and strengthen all the advocates of pro- 
 gress. It would give greater force to their arguments in favour of just reforms 
 and more liberty; and this not only in Great Britain, but throughout Europe 
 The abandonment of the old system of arbitration by a reference to a Sovereign 
 more or less unfit from the very nature of his position, and the introduction of 
 a tribunal, almost republican in its character, whose decisions would have a 
 weight as precedents, an authority heretofore unknown as expositions of inter- 
 national law, would be no trifling events in the march of Democratic Freedom. 
 
 VII. Such a proposition would also be in accord with our traditional policy 
 of peace and goodwill towards men. 
 
 The most serious objection that has been urged, so far as I have heard, 
 
 t86j 
 
 against such a Court of Arbitrati6n, is the difficulty of finding gentlemen not al- 
 ready biased by their feelings or in some way committed in their opinions. 
 
 This objection applies, however, in a measure to all human tribunals; it 
 would apply to arbitration by a sovereign, and would leave us no attar solution 
 other thtm the dread, arbitrament of war. Tor myself I cannot believe that 
 there ara not to be had in England and America, gentlemen of the requisite 
 learning, experience, and impartiality for a position so dignified and useful. 
 At all events, there are many eminent men in Europe in every way qualified 
 for this high duty. I have in my ' mind's eye a Swiss publicist, who, after 
 having filled the most responsible stations at home, is now worthily repre- 
 senting bis people in their most important diplomatic post. The decisions 
 rendered by him and gentlemen like him would be such as two great and free 
 nations could accept with satisfaction. I daresay he has friendly feelings to- 
 wards the Republic, but he cannot be wanting in like sentiments for the old 
 champion of liberty. The preferences of such enlightened statesmen could not 
 possibly be of a character to influence their judgments, and the parties most 
 interested might well be content to abide their award. 
 
 Believe me, my dear sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 Thomas Balch. 
 
 7LJ, bOtXi 
 £<-c«- ©6*«- TIL ml(J n-v-y ft 
 
 THE licSnsinU La w& 
 
 As the last meeting of the Council the discussion on the proposod 
 Memorial to the Home Secretary relative toHhe Licensing LawSyivas 
 adjourhed. As the debate will be resumed at the Council Meeting 
 next Thursday, this is the best time for giving our promised/abstract 
 -of thf> ortzhpy^r—s then adduced The Memoria* '■ *: V > :Vi<l 
 
 of it 
 
 ■j\ t« £**K''%f,;aority to license to 
 snience we reprint the two senfc 
 
 > * i i*gb ^.-'..fJK^tUat^ 
 
 .local elected 
 ices containing 
 
 boi.d. , i or conv 
 that proposal :- 
 
 " They would therefore\espectfully urge Her Majesty's Government to intro- 
 duce a measure amending toi present laws at as/ea,rfy a period as possible, in 
 accordance with the recommenaations above enumerated of that Committee, with 
 one important exception. They\are strongly ni opinion that the licensing 
 authority should be vested, not itKttie magistrates, but in a small Board to be 
 selected for that special purpose by^eXaJepayers of every borough, parish, or 
 union district* in the same way as gaaxdjs,ns of the poor are now elected." 
 
 Tho Rev. s. A. -Steinthal Teferra, in mwRftig the adoption of the memorial; 
 to the almost universal dissatisfapfion. existing wUh reference to the present laws 
 regarding licenses, and to the^ract 'that several iStommittees of both Houses of 
 Parliament had reported against the present laws, annSo favour of certain amend- 
 ments. He especially called attention to the' recommenoations contained in the 
 report made by Mr. VjKiers' Committee in 1854, and pointetf^ut how the increase 
 of assessment and qj>the tax on licenses proposed by that coramirtee would limit 
 the number of fitfuses licensed, and would thereby be beneficiab^He further 
 dwelt upontbeadvisability of demanding sureties for the proper fulfilment of 
 the condjjjrfns of tbe license, and expressed his strong agreement with Ss theory 
 that tb>e<granting of all licenses should be under the control of one and thessame 
 au^Jfority. But the recommendatiou that that authority should be vested ilrthe 
 'Ocal magistracy, he could not advocate. He reminded the Council of the con- 
 
 
 -Af, 
 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 1 7 
 
 opinion he had great respect, to reprint it in that 
 periodical, March 15th, 1867, and spoke of it as an 
 "important letter," but made no further comment. 11 
 
 Law, or the Conflict of Laws, which has now reached a fifth edition; 
 in 1894, Chapters on the Principles of International Law; in 1904, 
 International Law, Part I., Peace (a second edition, 1910), and in 
 1907, Part II., War (of which a second edition is promised). He 
 has contributed many articles upon International Law to the Revue 
 de Droit International, The Law Quarterly Review, and other maga- 
 zines. 
 
 In a letter dated from London, April 17th, 1896, Mr. Westlake 
 wrote to the editor of this reprint as follows: "I may remark, by 
 the way, with regard to the mention of my name on page [16], that 
 I was not editor of Social Science, but, as an officer of the now de- 
 funct Social Science Association, I was able to get Mr. Balch's letter 
 inserted in the little publication which belonged to the association." 
 
 Among the members of the Social Science Association in 1867, 
 were the Right Hon. Sir Stafford Northcote, Bart, M.P., one of the 
 negotiators of the Treaty of Washington (1871), Earl Russell, Lord 
 Brougham, John Stuart Mill, M.P., and many other members of 
 Parliament, David Dudley Field of the New York Bar, and F. von 
 Holtzendorff of Berlin— T. W. B.] 
 
 11 [The following extract is from a newspaper of Lausanne. — 
 T. W. B. 
 
 "Un journal anglais des sciences economiques et sociales publie 
 sur la question de I' Alabama et des indemnities reclamees par le 
 gouvernement des Etats-Unis, une lettre ecrite par un juriste habile 
 de Philadelphie, rdsidant a Paris. Apr6s avoir touche quelquesuns 
 des points en litige, l'6crivain demontre que le seul moyen raisonnable, 
 civilise^ chrdtien, pratique de regler cette question dangereuse, avant 
 qu'une nouvelle guerre ne fasse surgir des complications nouvelles, 
 c'est la nomination d'une cour arbitrate, prise en dehors des souverains 
 
1 8 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 Nevertheless, the idea was well received by such 
 men as Laboulaye, Henri Moreau, and other mem- 
 bers of the Societe de la Legislation Compare'e, in 
 France; by von Holtzendorff, Kapp, and other 
 honored publicists in Germany. That the letter 
 in which the plan was originally sketched out 
 should be lost sight of was quite natural and usual. 
 I know of no more affecting picture of the sic vos, 
 non vobis, haps and mishaps of literary life than 
 that traced by Bluntschli in his introduction to 
 his "Code of Belligerent Laws," 12 where he tells 
 how the men who propounded or elaborated some 
 great governing principle of International Law 
 have, in the course of time, been as absolutely for- 
 gotten as the skillful but obscure workman who 
 converts the dingy pebble into the brilliant gem. 
 The proposed tribunal was, however, made the 
 subject of some articles and two or three prelec- 
 tions. Discussion gave it vitality. It grew in 
 favor, was considered plausible, then feasible, and 
 
 de l'Europe. L'£crivain propose comme eminemment apte a faire 
 partie de cette commission, par son liability, son independance et 
 son complet desinteressement dans cette question, l'honorable M. 
 Kern, ambassadeur de la Suisse a Paris. L'idee est neuveet 
 heureuse."] 
 
 12 Le Droit International CodifiS, par M. Bluntschli, translated by 
 M. Lardy, Secretary to the Swiss Legation, Paris, 1870. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 1 9 
 
 finally took a visible form and shape in the Treaty 
 of Washington. 13 
 
 It is not within the purview of these observa- 
 tions to discuss at large the provisions of that 
 Treaty. The Three Rules are so obnoxious to 
 numerous and serious objections that it is much 
 to be hoped in the interest of neutrals and honest 
 people generally, that the United States and Eng- 
 land will disagree so permanently and effectually 
 as to their construction and meaning as to have 
 nothing more said or heard of them, except the 
 just and severe criticism and condemnation which 
 they will probably receive from the distinguished 
 jurists who are soon to meet in Geneva. Had the 
 synod of diplomatists who framed these obscurely 
 expressed rules profited by the occasion to over- 
 throw some of the barbarisms still upheld, and, 
 for example, joined in adopting as a principle of 
 law the decision of the Supreme Court at Berlin, 
 "that every contract for introducing contraband 
 goods into a friendly State is contrary to law and 
 morals," 14 they would have rendered a vast service 
 
 13 [Concerning the Geneva arbitration see Frank Warren Hackett: 
 Reminiscences of the Geneva Tribunal of Arbitration, 18/2; The Ala- 
 bama Claims: New York and Boston, 1911. — T. W. B.] 
 
 14 Heffter, cited by Lawrence, Com. iii., 401. 
 
20 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 to mankind. Perhaps, also, had Mr. Cobden lived, 
 his counsels might have so far prevailed as to have 
 given to the Treaty as a whole a character and 
 spirit which would have rendered it more accept- 
 able to the English people at large, more auspicious 
 also for the future of peaceable arbitraments of 
 international difficulties. It is not to be over- 
 looked that from time to time ebullitions, both in 
 and out of Parliament, such as the question of Sir 
 Henry Wolfe, the observations of Earl Russell, 
 prove that there still exists a certain uneasiness as 
 to the present as well as the past position of Great 
 Britain in that transaction. A few lines from one 
 of his later letters exhibit the standpoint from 
 which Mr. Cobden regarded the conduct of his 
 own country, and from it we may infer the char- 
 acter which he would have probably endeavored 
 to impress upon the negotiations: — 
 
 "Midhurst, 3d January, 1865. 
 "My Dear Mr. Balch, — I was very sorry to 
 miss the opportunity of seeing you in London. 
 There are very many topics on which I should 
 liked to have talked with you. * * * I think 
 it depends entirely on the discretion of your own 
 authorities at Washington to remain at peace with 
 all the world until your civil war is ended. I do 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 21 
 
 not say that you have not grievances; but one 
 quarrel at a time, as Mr. Lincoln says, is enough 
 for a nation or an individual. 15 With the British 
 Government I do not think, on the whole, you have as 
 much to be angry about as to be grateful for what it 
 has refused to do." 16 
 
 16 An observation which Mr. Lincoln made to the writer [Thomas 
 Balch] in the conversation above mentioned. [See note 7.] 
 
 16 [From the New York Daily Tribune, April 21st, 1865, page 8. 
 
 "The Death or Richard Cobden. 
 
 "From our own Correspondent. 
 [Mr. W. H. Huntington.] 
 
 "Paris, April 5th, 1865. 
 
 " The sad event of the day is the death of Richard Cobden. Honor- 
 able to him as to the French people is the universality of honorable, 
 intelligent homage paid to his memory by all sorts and classes of 
 intelligent Frenchmen. 
 
 "La Presse (Girardin's paper) came out in mourning last Monday 
 evening, heralding the first sad news of Cobden's death. The eulogium 
 pronounced on Cobden by Girardin — more witty even than touching — 
 you will find a copy of in your European files, but all the journals of 
 Paris have hastened to do honor to the great commoner. And while 
 the Government spokesman in the Corps Legislatif finds apt occasion 
 to say a word of eulogium in favor of the honest, wise English states- 
 man to which all the house, Imperial and Opposition, cordially re- 
 sponded, no official or unofficial, nor mean, insidious breath anywheres 
 breathes any thing but honor and funeral wailing over the name of 
 Richard Cobden. 
 
 "I have not time to quote, as I would, some passages from the 
 
22 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 Those Americans, who remember the official 
 account given in the Moniteur of the visit of 
 Messrs. Osborne and Lindsay to Compiegne, or 
 recall the letters exchanged between M. Thouvenel 
 
 sincere tribute paid, not merely in formal ceremony to his memory, 
 but to his ever-living idea by Emile [de] Girardin. 
 
 "A countryman of ours who has for years been in constant corre- 
 spondence with Richard Cobden, permits me in the interest of the 
 readers of The Tribune, to copy from a few of the letters received by 
 him from Mr. Cobden, the following brief extracts. They stand in 
 need of no explanatory comments. The plain good sense is patent. 
 It may be excusable to note to to-day's readers the dates of the 
 extracts of Mr. Cobden's letters to Mr. Balch, and I have reason to 
 add the expression of my conviction, based on various probabilities, 
 that, had Richard Cobden lived, he would have been (indeed by self 
 logic must have been) a strenuous, earnest advocate of that scheme 
 of arbitration or of some similar scheme of arbitration of the 'Alabama 
 claim,' notes of which I had the honor to be the communicator to 
 The Tribune a week or so ago. 
 
 "Here follow such scant words as can be safely picked out from the 
 sacredness of private correspondence. Had Richard Cobden been 
 less one of ours than his very nature and gifts and triumphs, his 
 aspirations and large sympathies made him, still would his written 
 thoughts be worth our heeding, intrinsically worth as they are 'profit- 
 able for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in right- 
 eousness. ' 
 
 "'Midhtjrst, 3d January, 1865. 
 
 '"My Dear Mr. Balch: 
 
 " ' I was very sorry to miss the opportunity of seeing you in London. 
 There are very many topics on which I should have liked to have talked 
 with you. * * * I think it depends entirely on the discretion of 
 your own authorities at Washington to remain at peace with all the 
 world until your civil war is ended. I do not say that you have not 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 23 
 
 and Mr. Dayton, or the avowed purposes of the 
 Mexican expedition, will probably concur in the 
 opinion thus expressed by Mr. Cobden. 
 
 Whatever the criticisms to which the Treaty 
 
 grievances; but one quarrel at a time, as Mr. Lincoln says, is enough 
 for a nation or an individual. With the British Government I do not 
 think, on the whole, you have as much to be angry about as to be 
 grateful for what it has refused to do. * * *' 
 
 '"Midhurst, 17th Feb., 1865. 
 
 '"[To the same.] Your letter with the enclosure only reached me 
 here to-day. It was addressed to 27 Victoria St. But I have not yet 
 been able to go to London to attend my duties in Parliament. I am 
 weather bound here. My health is greatly improved, but I do not 
 care to run the risk of night sittings in the House, when there is really 
 nothing before Parliament for which any sensible man would think 
 himself called upon to commit martyrdom. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 " ' There never was a more absurd canard than that invented by the 
 Southern sympathizers — that England and France contemplated an 
 intervention. And there is almost as great absurdity in the programme 
 which the same party has cut out for you when the war ends — viz., 
 that you are to begin a war with France or England or all the world. 
 Now, I have a very different work in store for you. When the war 
 ceases, you will be like two line-of-battle ships after a desperate 
 struggle; all hands will be required to clear the wreck, repair damages 
 in hull and rigging, look after the wounded and bury the dead. There 
 will be great suffering among all classes before you return to a normal 
 state of things. You have been in a saturnalia of greenbacks and 
 Government expenditure, which may be likened to the pleasant 
 excitement of alcohol. But peace will be the headache after the 
 debauch, with the unpleasant tavern reckoning.' 
 
24 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 may in whole or in parts be open, there remained 
 for the friends of peace and international arbitra- 
 tion the great, triumphant fact that the Court did 
 meet at Geneva and by its award averted, as far 
 
 "'MiDmjRST, 12th March, 1865. 
 
 "'[To the same.] * * * I have great faith in the aggregate 
 intelligence of your country whenever its attention is forced by 
 adverse circumstances to a serious study of politics. As soon as the 
 war is over, it will be found that you have a great financial difficulty 
 to deal with. We have gone through it all. Political economy, like 
 chemistry or mechanics, is universal in the operation of its laws. You 
 can no more disregard or fail to imitate our financial policy in raising 
 your future revenue than you can reject our locomotives or our last 
 improvement in dyeing calicoes. At present, your Finance Committees 
 in Congress are pursuing a course which our oldest Tories would turn 
 up their noses at. In fact, you are just where we were in 1818, before 
 Huskisson, Peel and Gladstone were heard of in the path of financial 
 
 reform. Nay, a good many of your public men, led by Mr. ■ — , 
 
 seem to be going back to the 'maximum' of the French Revolution, 
 and are for fixing the price of gold! When he has succeeded, I shall 
 pray him to come here to regulate the weather and put down the east 
 wind! But you will soon surmount all these follies when the nation 
 finds itself in the school of adversity. 
 
 " 'Would it be too much to ask you to send me the pamphlet marked 
 in the inclosed? I shall be happy if you will make similar use of me 
 when I am in London. "'Believe me, [etc.], 
 
 '"R. COBDEN.'" 
 
 I have compared the above extracts from Richard Cobden's letters 
 with the originals which are now in my possession. The gentleman 
 mentioned by Mr. Cobden, in his letter of March 12th, but whose 
 name is omitted in the extract quoted above by Mr. Huntington 
 was "Mr. Stevens.'' Richard Cobden died April 2nd, 1865.— T. W. B.] 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 25 
 
 as human probabilities go, an appeal to arms. 
 That the United States and English Commissioners 
 were rather too national and demonstrative, does 
 not seriously militate against such courts, but 
 merely touches the construction of them; and we 
 have a notable proof of their value and integrity in 
 the Court of the Mixed Commission which sat at 
 Newport in 1873, to hear and decide upon the 
 English and American claims. In the case of the 
 Circassian, already mentioned, Count Corti, the 
 President of the Commission, took it upon himself 
 to overrule the decision of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, an act of high judicial courage, 
 which, apart from its legal bearings, is an omen of 
 great promise, for it proves that men of character 
 will sit in such dignified tribunals and render im- 
 partial decisions. 17 
 
 Likewise that the United States has kept the 
 money so promptly and honorably paid does not 
 touch the question of international arbitration or 
 its desirableness. The prolonged struggle in Con- 
 gress over the disposition of these funds may be 
 
 17 Count Corti tells me that his reason for cutting down the claim 
 was this: That it is true the blockade was raised by Federal success; 
 but such was not the case when the Circassian sailed. She, there- 
 fore, left in delicto, and continued so, till nearly the end of her voyage. 
 
26 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 never so dishonest or discreditable to the American 
 legislative authorities, but it does not impugn the 
 justice of the decision by which they were placed 
 in the hands of that Government in its capacity 
 as a great national trustee. To present the claims 
 for "indirect losses" may have been an act of 
 audacious chicane which reflected no credit on 
 those who did it; but the tribunal did itself honor, 
 and gave us a valuable precedent by ruling against 
 their admissibility. 
 
 The friends of International Courts of Arbitra- 
 tion may fairly assert that this mode of settling 
 great national questions has been fully and suc- 
 cessfully tried, that it may be considered as having 
 thereby passed into and henceforth forming a 
 distinct part of that uncertain and shapeless mass 
 of decision and dicta which we call International 
 Law. Without participating in the visions so 
 grandly developed by Zuinglius, 18 and so fondly 
 cherished by Grotius, of the good time, a good time 
 to be won only by toil and unremitting efforts, — 
 
 "Till the war-drums throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were 
 
 furl'd, 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the World." 19 
 
 is Civitas Christiana. 
 
 19 Tennyson's Locksley Hall. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 27 
 
 we may reasonably expect that through such 
 tribunals, through their proceedings and decisions, 
 and not through empirical codes, we may ultimately 
 arrive at some more tangible and better ordered 
 system of International Law; one to which the 
 assent of civilized peoples may be given greatly to 
 the benefit and peace of mankind. 
 
 A deep, well-settled conviction that this great 
 advance in human progress is not only imminent, 
 but has already commenced and is assured for the 
 future, makes it incumbent on its advocates to 
 examine carefully and philosophically the various 
 forms in which Courts of Arbitration may be 
 organized, and especially the limits within which 
 their authority may be beneficially exercised. I 
 received not very long since a communication from 
 Professor Lorimer, notable for its calm and magis- 
 terial discussion of these points. As the New York 
 Tribune had given light and life to my original 
 letter, it seemed but proper that the observations 
 of this distinguished jurist should appear first in 
 its columns. They were accompanied April nth, 
 1874, by an article supposed to be from the pen of 
 the chief editor, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, 20 the character 
 
 20 [Whitelaw Reid, editor-in-chief of the New York Tribune since 
 1872, has filled many important posts. He was American Minister 
 
28 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 and interest of which induce me to reprint it here 
 instead of any introductory remarks of my own. 
 
 "LIMITS OF ARBITRATION. 
 "About nine years ago, the Tribune published a 
 letter from Mr. Thomas Balch, recommending 
 almost precisely the plan of arbitration in the 
 Alabama case, which after infinite discussion, was 
 finally adopted and carried out to so satisfactory 
 a conclusion at Geneva. It is in reference to that 
 early communication of Mr. Balch that Prof. 
 James Lorimer, the Regius Professor of Public 
 Law and of the Law of Nations, in the University 
 of Edinburgh, has written to him the letter which 
 we print this morning. It is worthy of special 
 attention as the mature utterance of a publicist 
 who, having devoted his life to the study of inter- 
 national law and the theories of international 
 relations, and having been a prominent advocate 
 of arbitration and a constant protestant against 
 the barbarism of war, retains enough of impartial 
 
 to France, 1889-1892, Republican candidate for Vice-President of 
 the United States in 1892, special American Ambassador to Queen 
 Victoria's jubilee in 1897, an American peace commissioner to treat 
 with Spain at Paris in 1898, and special American Ambassador for 
 the Coronation of Edward the Seventh in 1902. Since 1905 he has 
 been American Ambassador to Great Britain. — T. W. B.] 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 29 
 
 calmness of judgment to recognize the limits which 
 are probably imposed upon the capabilities of 
 arbitration by the conditions of human nature and 
 civilized policy. 
 
 "Professor Lorimer expects nothing of arbitra- 
 tion, for instance, in cases where one party is 
 morally incapable of entering rationally into a 
 contract, or physically incapable of enforcing its 
 provisions when made. This excludes most of the 
 fighting which ordinarily falls to the lot of Eng- 
 land. It is evident that neither the Emperor 
 Theodore nor the King Coffee-Kalkalli was capable 
 of appreciating any procedure except the one 
 which was put in force against them both. Neither 
 is there any prospect that the civilized world will 
 ever be able to interfere with the progress or the 
 result of civil wars. Prof. Lorimer does not state 
 that as his own conclusion, but his references to the 
 Paris Commune and our own war of the Rebellion 
 would lead in that direction. In cases where the 
 real object of a war is to determine the relative 
 strength of two nations, and where an unquestioned 
 supremacy is to be the prize of victory, it is clear 
 that arbitration is hopeless, except by an armed 
 intervention of allied powers too imposing to be 
 resisted. It was, for example, impossible to pre- 
 
30 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 vent the Franco-Prussian conflict. The trivial 
 question of the interview of Benedetti and King 
 William in the garden at Ems, might of course have 
 been arranged in any half -hour's session of a jury 
 of gentlemen. But the genuine, unmanageable 
 question which remained behind, was the one 
 which could not be peacefully settled ; that is, 
 whether Prussia or France was the stronger. The 
 field of arbitration seems therefore to be limited 
 to the class of disputes of which the Alabama and 
 the San Juan Boundary questions are specimens. 
 How narrow this field is, may be seen when we 
 reflect that except in case of great popular excite- 
 ment they would never have been made a pretext 
 for war, and that if this excitement had really 
 existed they could not have been referred to arbi- 
 tration. The world is yet far from that millennial 
 condition when reason and charity are to exercise 
 a commanding influence upon disputes between 
 nations. The better sense of mankind has come, 
 however, to recognize the irrational character of 
 war, and the advocates of peaceful international 
 tribunals are probably not too sanguine in hoping 
 that the future is theirs. But at present their 
 nearest attainable ideal is the establishment of an 
 international organization of force which shall pre- 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 3 1 
 
 vent wars by armed menace. There are many who 
 doubt whether armies will not survive courts of 
 justice, and Mr. Lorimer cogently observes: 'When 
 I hear of a State of which the citizens have become 
 so reasonable and dispassionate as to abolish com- 
 pulsory jurisdiction and to trust to voluntary 
 arbitration, I shall then begin to have higher hopes 
 of international reason and moderation, and, con- 
 sequently, of international arbitration.'" 
 
 The letter from Professor Lorimer, thus spoken 
 of, was as follows: — 
 
 "No. 1, Bruntsfield Crescent, Edinburgh, 
 "February ioth, 1874. 
 
 "Considering the interest which is everywhere 
 taken in International Arbitration at present, and 
 more especially with a view to the discussion that 
 will take place at the meeting of the International 
 Institute at Geneva in October, I think it very 
 desirable that you should republish the letter 
 which you addressed to the 'New York Tribune' in 
 1865, adding to it such suggestions as your observa- 
 tion of subsequent events may enable you to offer. 
 
 "I do not know to what extent that letter, or 
 anything else you said or did, may have led to the 
 negotiation of the Treaty of Washington, by which 
 
32 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 the threatened war between our countries is be- 
 lieved by many to have been averted; but certain 
 it is, that the letter was a very remarkable antici- 
 pation of the treaty which was negotiated six years 
 afterward. The tribunal which you suggested 
 almost exactly corresponded to that appointed 
 under Article XII. 21 of the Treaty, and even the 
 great tribunal which sat at Geneva under Article I. 22 
 
 21 [In Article XII. of the Treaty of Washington (1871), after a 
 statement of some matters other than the Alabama claims that 
 should be referred for settlement to three Commissioners, provision 
 was made for the appointment of the Commissioners in the following 
 manner: "One Commissioner shall be named by the President of 
 the United States, one by Her Britannic Majesty, and a third by the 
 President of the United States and Her Britannic Majesty con- 
 jointly; and in case the third Commissioner shall not have been so 
 named within a period of three months from the date of the exchange 
 of the ratifications of this treaty, then the third Commissioner shall 
 be named by the Representative at Washington of His Majesty the 
 King of Spain. In case of the death, absence, or incapacity of any 
 Commissioner, or in the event of any Commissioner omitting or 
 ceasing to act, the vacancy shall be filled in the manner hereinbefore 
 provided for making the original appointment; the period of three 
 months in case of such substitution being calculated from the date 
 of the happening of the vacancy." Treaties and Conventions concluded 
 between the United Stales of America and other Powers since July 4, 
 1776. Department of State. Washington: Government Printing 
 Office, 1889, page 484— T. W. B.] 
 
 22 [In Article I., the Court of Arbitration to consist of five Arbi- 
 trators to try the "Alabama Claims" was provided for as follows: 
 
 "One [Arbitrator] shall be named by the President of the United 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 33 
 
 was only a fuller realization of your original con- 
 ception, by a larger infusion of the neutral element 
 than you had contemplated, into the Court. In 
 this respect it certainly was an improvement. But 
 for the presence of the neutral judges it is doubtful 
 if the work would have been brought to a successful 
 
 States; one shall be named by Her Britannic Majesty; His Majesty 
 the King of Italy shall be requested to name one; the President of 
 the Swiss Confederation shall be requested to name one; and His 
 Majesty the Emperor of Brazil shall be requested to name one. 
 
 "In case of the death, absence, or incapacity to serve of any or 
 either of the said Arbitrators, or, in the event of either of the said 
 Arbitrators omitting or declining or ceasing to act as such, the Presi- 
 dent of the United States, or Her Britannic Majesty, or His Majesty 
 the King of Italy, or the President of the Swiss Confederation, or 
 His Majesty the Emperor of Brazil, as the case may be, may forthwith 
 name another person to act as Arbitrator in the place and stead of 
 the Arbitrator originally named by such head of a State. 
 
 "And in the event of the refusal or omission for two months after 
 receipt of the request from either of the high contracting parties of 
 His Majesty the King of Italy, or the President of the Swiss Con- 
 federation, or His Majesty the Emperor of Brazil, to name an Arbi- 
 trator either to fill the original appointment or in the place of one 
 who may have died, be absent, or incapacitated, or who may omit, 
 decline or from any cause cease to act as such Arbitrator, His Majesty 
 the King of Sweden and Norway shall be requested to name one or 
 more persons, as the case may be, to act as such Arbitrator or Arbi. 
 trators." Treaties and Conventions concluded between the United 
 States of America and other Powers since July 4, 1776. Department 
 of State. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1889, page 
 479— T. W. B.] 
 
34 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 issue, and I think it very worthy of consideration 
 whether, on all future occasions, the Commissioners 
 ought not to be appointed exclusively from neutrals. 
 "In his introduction to his pamphlet on Belliger- 
 ent and Sovereign Rights, which contains his very 
 able pleading in the case of the Circassian, Mr. W. 
 Beach Lawrence remarks on the want of judicial 
 dignity and impartiality displayed by the Com- 
 missioners of both the interested nations, and adds: 
 'In that tribunal there were three other members, 
 and two of them might, perhaps, without serious 
 inconvenience, have been withdrawn from the 
 bench.' I confess I am much disposed to agree 
 with him. The judges of such a court, as it seems 
 to me, ought all to be neutrals, the belligerents, so 
 to speak, appearing only in their true character as 
 litigants. Whether their judges ought all to be 
 chosen by neutrals is another question. With a 
 view to removing or mitigating the aversion which 
 proud and jealous nations naturally feel to intrust- 
 ing their honor and their interests to others, it 
 might probably be expedient that each litigant 
 should retain the direct appointment of one mem- 
 ber of the court, binding itself not to select him 
 from its own citizens, or from the citizens of any 
 State that was dependent upon it. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 35 
 
 "But the chief difficulties attending International 
 Arbitration have reference, not to the organization 
 of suitable tribunals, but to the determination of 
 the character of the parties capable of organizing 
 them, and the character of the questions that can 
 be submitted to them. In this country there is 
 a tendency to pooh-pooh arbitration altogether, 
 on the ground of the limited sphere of its possible 
 operation; and to save it from ridicule and vindi- 
 cate for it the position to which it is really entitled, 
 I do think it very important that we jurists should 
 try whether we cannot eliminate the impossible 
 cases and moderate the expectations of its inju- 
 dicious advocates. 23 It is very much this task which 
 the Institute proposes to itself in the first instance, 
 and I know no one more able to aid in its accom- 
 plishment than yourself, privileged as you are to 
 enjoy the society of such jurists as Mr. Lawrence. 
 As I belong to the committee which the Institute 
 has appointed to study the kindred subject of 
 'The Three Rules,' I shall not be called upon to 
 
 23 [Concerning the difference between legal and political claims 
 in the affairs of Nations, see John Westlake, International Law, 
 Cambridge University, 1904, Volume I., pages 289-293. Also the article 
 by the same author on International Arbitration which appeared in 
 the International Journal of Ethics for October, 1896, and which is 
 reprinted in the volume above cited at pages 332-350. — T. W. B.] 
 
36 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 express my opinion on this subject previous to the 
 meeting, and I shall therefore mention to you now, 
 in a very few words, what has occurred to me: — 
 
 "First: Arbitration being a contract by which 
 the parties agree to abide by the decision of a 
 third, is possible only between two parties, both 
 of whom possess rational, and, as such, contracting 
 will. This cuts off arbitration between civilized 
 nations and barbarians, because barbarians are 
 incapable of entering into such a contract. Civil- 
 ized nations could not trust to the decision of the 
 arbitrators whom barbarians might appoint; and 
 even supposing them to appoint civilized men, 
 civilized nations could not trust to their acceptance 
 of the decision in which their own arbitrators had 
 concurred. If the conduct of civilized nations to 
 barbarians be unjust, it is a form of injustice which 
 may be prevented — as in the case of the slave 
 trade — by the condemnation and even by the 
 intervention of other civilized nations; but it 
 cannot be prevented by arbitration. 
 
 "Second: There are internal as well as external 
 barbarians to whom these observations apply. 
 Arbitration between the Commune of Paris, for 
 example, and the Government of Versailles, would 
 have been as much out of place as between us and 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 37 
 
 the Ashantees, or between a criminal and the public 
 prosecutor. 
 
 "Third: Arbitration is inapplicable where the 
 question at issue has reference to the relative 
 value of States — where it is asked, for example, 
 whether their historical position in relation to each 
 other is or is not now their true position. So far 
 as the Franco-German war was a fight for the 
 hegemony of continental Europe, it did not admit 
 of arbitration, for the very obvious reason that that 
 was a question which, if it must be decided, could 
 be decided only by trial of strength. On the other 
 hand, in so far as the Franco-German war arose 
 from the question whether France was entitled 
 to the boundary of the Rhine, on geographical 
 grounds, or whether Germany was entitled to 
 Alsace and Lorraine on historical and ethnological 
 grounds, it was a fit subject for arbitration, how- 
 ever difficult it might have been to induce either 
 power to think so. It would, I believe, have been 
 physically possible for Russia, England, America, 
 and Austria combined, to have forced their services 
 as mediators even upon two such formidable com- 
 batants as France and Germany, and perhaps they 
 might now prevent the too probable recurrence of 
 war. But even in the most improbable and incon- 
 
38 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 ceivable event of their arbitration being accepted, 
 by no decree arbitral could they have produced the 
 facts that resulted from the late war, or could they 
 now anticipate those which may result from 
 another. Arbitration, like judicial action in any 
 other form, can only declare a relation which 
 already exists, whereas war brings about new re- 
 lations, or at least converts those which existed in 
 posse into relations in esse. On this ground I fear 
 the Eastern Question too is beyond the reach of 
 arbitration, that question, in its essence, being the 
 question as to whether or not Russia be in reality 
 the preponderating power, and, as such, entitled 
 to give the law to the East of Europe and the West 
 of Asia. Here, however, there is one element 
 favorable to arbitration which did not exist in the 
 case of France and Germany, namely, the willing- 
 ness of one of the parties, at least (Turkey), to 
 place herself unreservedly into the hands of 
 neutrals. I refrain altogether from offering an 
 opinion as to whether arbitration was, at any time, 
 possible in the relations between the Northern and 
 Southern States, previous to, or during the course 
 of your own great civil war, that being a subject on 
 which you are so much more able to form an 
 opinion than I am. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 39 
 
 "These three cases, or classes of cases, then, are 
 the only ones I can think of at present that seem to 
 forbid the hope of ever being dealt with by arbi- 
 tration. They leap over all the ordinary disputes 
 and disagreements of nations, which admit of being 
 measured by pecuniary compensation, or arranged 
 by the exchange or cession of territory, with a 
 view to the rectification of boundary lines and the 
 like. Even within these limits the action of courts 
 composed of neutral arbiters may be extremely 
 useful in removing more speedily and with less 
 irritation than was possible by the arbitration of 
 sovereigns or by ordinary diplomacy, causes which 
 interrupted international cordiality, and in the 
 end may have led to wars. But it is not out of 
 questions such as these that great wars have gen- 
 erally arisen. I doubt whether you could mention 
 a single war of any importance between two 
 civilized nations that arose substantially out of 
 such a question as the Alabama claims; and that 
 question, too, would, in my opinion, have been 
 settled without war even although it had not been 
 settled by arbitration. 24 It is well that we have 
 been spared the estrangement to which a trouble- 
 
 24 It was, more likely, because the questions to be adjudicated came 
 within the domain of "le Droit International prive" and not "public." 
 
40 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 some course of negotiation, probably extending 
 over years, must inevitably have led, and that we 
 have escaped the still more fatal consequences in 
 which such estrangement might have resulted. 
 But it is well, too, that we should remember that, 
 in our international just as in our municipal rela- 
 tions, arbitration being voluntary on both sides, 
 must always be of the nature of a friendly suit; 
 and that the first condition of its possibility is that 
 one of the parties at all events shall have previously 
 come to the conclusion that the question in dispute 
 is not worth a war. In this case I suspect that a 
 conclusion had been arrived at by both parties, 
 and hence the success of the arbitration. 
 
 "Those who expect arbitration to become appli- 
 cable to the graver disputes of nations are probably 
 misled by the frivolous pretexts on which declara- 
 tions of war are often made at the last — such, for 
 example, as the Emperor not wishing to talk poli- 
 tics when he was drinking his waters, or after he 
 had drunk them. But these are not the causes of 
 war ; deeper causes at least lie behind them, for 
 which deeper remedies than arbitration must be 
 found. We may hope that wars will diminish in 
 frequency by the gradual action of a growing 
 national reason, and the adoption of sounder 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 4 1 
 
 political principles, national and international, till 
 at last, like duelling in this country, they cease 
 altogether. But if they are to be averted directly, 
 I am convinced that that can be done only by the 
 help of some form of international organization 
 which shall render it possible to bring the armed 
 intervention of neutral nations to bear on them. 
 I fear you will think me a pessimist in this matter. 
 I know that such is the opinion of many of my 
 sanguine friends in Europe, and even of some of 
 my colleagues of the Institute. But I cannot 
 affect a confidence which I do not feel; and I am 
 wholly unable to discover grounds for expecting 
 results from arbitration in international relations 
 which it does not yield in municipal relations, and 
 this more especially when I reflect how far 
 municipal organization has advanced beyond inter- 
 national organization, and municipal law beyond 
 international law. When I hear of a State of 
 which the citizens have become so reasonable and 
 dispassionate as to abolish compulsory jurisdiction 
 and to trust to voluntary arbitration, I shall then 
 begin to have higher hopes of international reason 
 and moderation, and consequently of International 
 Arbitration. I do not say that an international 
 legislature, an international judicature, and an 
 
42 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 international executive, after the manner I have 
 elsewhere suggested, are aspirations capable of 
 realization. Perhaps, as M. Rolin-Jaequemyns 25 
 maintains, they are remedies which might prove 
 more dreadful than even the terrible malady they 
 were intended to cure. But I do say that they are 
 the only direct remedies for war, and that, apart 
 .from them, we must be contented to teach, to 
 wait, and — to pray. 
 
 "Believe me, etc., 
 
 "J. LORIMER." 26 
 
 The foregoing remarks require no comment fur- 
 ther than to express my hearty concurrence with 
 nearly all of them. One point admits of an obser- 
 vation. 
 
 As to arbitration between the Northern and the 
 
 26 Editor of La Revue du Droit International. 
 
 26 Professor Lorimer is best known on this side of the Atlantic by 
 his treatise, The Institutes of Law as determined by the Principles of 
 Nature, Edinburgh, 1872; but his Constitutionalism of the Future and 
 his Political Progress not necessarily Democratic, are well worthy the 
 consideration of American publicists. 
 
 [Professor Lorimer also wrote, The Institutes of the Law of Nations: 
 A Treatise of the Jural Relations of Separate Political Communities, 
 Edinburgh and London, 1883-84, and Studies National and Inter- 
 national, Edinburgh, 1890. — T. W. B.] 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 43 
 
 Southern States before the breaking out of the 
 civil war in America: — 
 
 (i.) The Constitution of the United States was 
 framed expressly with a view to avoid and prevent 
 any sort of hostile dispute between the constituent 
 members of the Union. It is beyond the purposes 
 of this pamphlet to enter into an elaborate ex- 
 amination of the functions and powers of the 
 Supreme Court, or the complex, delicate machinery 
 of co-ordinate executive, legislative, and judicial 
 powers, by which it was thought that all questions, 
 how grave soever, would be peaceably and satis- 
 factorily solved. Without attempting to cite Kent 
 or Story, or other learned jurists, it is quite suffi- 
 cient, in order to show that it was so understood 
 at the time, to refer to the debates in the Virginia 
 Convention prior to the adoption of the Federal 
 Constitution, and especially to the adverse argu- 
 ments of George Mason and the replies of James 
 Madison. 
 
 (it.) An extra-constitutional body or Peace Con- 
 ference was in fact convened in Washington, com- 
 posed of representatives from the different States. 
 That its efforts proved abortive, and that the con- 
 stitutional remedies for the alleged wrong of the 
 South were not resorted to, were simply owing to the 
 
44 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 fact, that from the first, it was intended by the 
 leading Southern politicians to disregard them and 
 reject all attempts at settlement. Both kinds of 
 arbitration, that legally organized and prepared in 
 advance, that which was advisory and voluntary, 
 were summarily spurned, and there remained no 
 other tribunal than that of force. 
 
 There are also other "signs of the times" which 
 justify the advocates of International Arbitration 
 in entertaining great hope for the future. Rail- 
 ways, ocean steamers, telegraphs and newspapers, 
 have created a solidarity amongst nations, such as 
 has not heretofore existed, too occult as yet for its 
 force to be fully appreciated, but whose influences 
 are visible like the early streaks of the dawn. 
 Evangelical alliances, international meetings for 
 scientific purposes, congresses to consider the treat- 
 ment of criminals, the international law associa- 
 tions which are soon to assemble in Geneva, and 
 various other societies, testify to the growth 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 45 
 
 of this feeling. The advanced education of 
 the working classes has provoked and fostered a 
 spirit of inquiry amongst them, and they too have 
 their international gatherings, where, amongst other 
 things, they ask why wars in which they are 
 slaughtered by thousands should be wantonly 
 undertaken? 27 The Congress lately convened at 
 Brussels may be referred to as an evidence that 
 governments also commence to recognize this 
 tendency towards community amongst nations. It 
 is true that the United States were not represented, 
 that England and France sent delegates fettered 
 by instructions, that Austria sent memoranda from 
 her war department as well as from her foreign 
 office, and that other powers maintained a guarded 
 reserve. The conferences of that Congress may 
 prove sterile from many causes, not the least of 
 which are the difficulties inherent in the very 
 nature of the subjects which they propose to regu- 
 late by codes. La Societe Frangaise des amis de la 
 Paix, 28 protested with great severity against arti- 
 cles III. and IV., as "awakening indignation and 
 
 27 "Pourquoi nous egorger? Ne vaut-il pas mieux aimer? Les 
 peuples sont des freres." 
 
 28 Courier des &ats-Unis, August nth, 1874. "Un Congres de 
 Dissidents." 
 
46 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 horror in the breast of every honest man." The 
 course of the Swiss, Spanish, Dutch, Austrian, 
 Swedish, and Belgian delegates during the debates 
 clearly evinces the doubtful practicability of giving 
 those articles an efficient or satisfactory action, 
 should they be ever accepted. The outcry of the 
 French as to the conduct of the Germans at Weis- 
 senbourg, at Bazincourt, at Ablis, at Etrepagny 
 and other places was loud at the time and has 
 never ceased. 29 The Germans responded by solemn 
 declarations that the so-called victims were indi- 
 vidual adventurers, unorganized forces, and in 
 these or in other ways amenable to the utmost 
 rigors of the laws of war. In the matter of requi- 
 sitions, the German history of the Franco-German 
 war, prepared with the most elaborate care by the 
 Prussian staff, 30 asserts that all the pains possible 
 were taken to carry out in an orderly manner the 
 proclamation of the King (August 8th), yet such 
 were the obstacles, so serious the embarrassments, 
 
 29 The latest French history of the war of 1870-71, by A. Wachter, 
 Paris, 1874, has at page 152 a large wood cut, entitled "Massacre des 
 blesses dans des fermes converties en ambulances. Episode de Wissem- 
 bourg." 
 
 30 La Guerre Franco-Allemande de 1870-71. — Translation of Major 
 Costa de Serda, Berlin, 1873-4, i., 422, 423. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 47 
 
 so numerous the infractions, that "it required the 
 most energetic intervention of the superior officers 
 to prevent disorder from spreading like a con- 
 tagion" — an experience not peculiar to that war, 
 as may be seen from the nature and incidents of 
 some of the claims presented to, and passed upon 
 by, the Mixed Commission already referred to as 
 organized under the Treaty of Washington. Much 
 practical good can scarcely be expected therefore 
 from the deliberation of the Congress touching 
 such subjects. It furnishes, nevertheless, an ele- 
 ment of hope in that the world has beheld a body of 
 authorized delegates who have discussed in a com- 
 mon tongue some momentous questions, and cited 
 Puffendorf, Vattel, Ortolan, and other authorities 
 in support of their views. But above all, it is a 
 proof that Governments as well as Peoples recog- 
 nize the idea of a common humanity, that this 
 idea exhibits vitality and an aggressive strength, 
 that it exacts respect from the former, and will 
 sooner or later respond to the aspirations and 
 satisfy the needs of the latter. 
 
 Newport, Rhode Island, September 8th, 1874. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 5 1 
 
 I. 
 
 The following article was part of a letter written 
 at Paris on October the 31st, 1874, to the Philadel- 
 phia North American and United States Gazette, and 
 published in that paper on November the 14th. 
 I am inclined to think that the author was Mr. 
 W. H. Huntington (see page 12), for many years 
 the Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune. 
 — T. W. B. 
 
 "The pamphlet of your fellow-townsman, Mr. 
 Thomas Balch, on ' International Courts of Arbitra- 
 tion,' dated from Newport, Rhode Island, and for 
 a copy of which I have to thank the author, has 
 attracted much and deserved attention here, both 
 from his own countrymen and others. In the 
 first place, the pamphlet is acknowledged to be 
 only a fair indication of the author's claims to be 
 considered, in the words of the article quoted by 
 him from the New York Tribune of April last, as 
 'the original recommender of almost precisely the 
 plan of arbitration in the Alabama case, which was 
 finally adopted and carried out to a conclusion at 
 
52 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 Geneva;' or in the still more forcible language of 
 his learned correspondent, Professor Lorimer, of 
 Edinburgh, as 'the very remarkable anticipator 
 (by his letter of March, 1865 [published in the New 
 York Tribune, on May 13th, 1865], that is addressed 
 to the above-named journal) of the Treaty which 
 was negotiated six years afterwards.' Such testi- 
 mony paid to the real service rendered by Mr. 
 Balch, both to his own country and the world at 
 large, though coming late, must be extremely 
 welcome, and will certainly take by surprise not a 
 few even of those who may have hitherto thought 
 themselves most fully acquainted with all the 
 circumstances of that long controversy. At least 
 such has been the impression left by its pages upon 
 many here, both American and French, whose 
 attention I have drawn to Mr. Balch's publication. 
 "But the pamphlet will be useful, and I am sure 
 its author will be glad to think and intended that 
 it should be so in other respects, as well as vindicat- 
 ing his own just rights and merits. Its excellent 
 tone will tend, I trust, to clear any dregs of bitter- 
 ness which may still cloud the good feelings which 
 ought to exist between the kindred nations — na- 
 tions who ought to understand more and more, since 
 late events and in the present chaotic state of Europe, 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 53 
 
 that they are the only two peoples between whom 
 something far nearer and closer than any mere 
 political alliance is possible, an alliance that is 
 based on social, religious, family, literary, historical 
 and a thousand other mutual associations, and all 
 whose public and private institutions, however 
 they may seem to differ occasionally in form, are 
 in reality akin, and wear and ever must wear a 
 strong family resemblance. And with this view 
 I am glad to see that Mr. Balch quotes the words 
 of Mr. Cobden, to the effect that, while admitting 
 grievances, America had 'more cause, on the whole, 
 to be grateful to the British Government for what 
 it refused to do, than angry with it for what it did,' 
 or, he might have added, sometimes neglected to 
 do. I heard nearly the same sentiment from the 
 lips of the lamented Mr. Dayton 31 here in Paris, 
 at the very crisis of the war; and none knew or 
 were made to feel more deeply or painfully than he 
 what the British Government had 'refused to do,' 
 and by whom it had been asked so to do. It is 
 
 31 [At that time our Minister to France. In reference to the 
 Mexican expedition, see Commentaire sur les Elements du Droit In- 
 ternational et sur I'Historie des progres du Droit des Gens de Henry 
 Wheaton. Precede d'une notice sur la carriere diplomatique de M. 
 Wheaton par William Beach Lawrence. F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig, 
 1869, Volume II., pages 339-387, passim. — T. W. B.] 
 
54 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 essential that the American people should under- 
 stand that the attempts to injure them in England 
 proceeded only from a party and a clique (such 
 as will exist in all countries under similar circum- 
 stances), and not from the country itself at large, 
 or its government; just as Mr. Balch so truly says, 
 that the abuses uttered against America in the 
 British Parliament proceeded from 'gentlemen who 
 form a class apart' and 'whose political creed is to 
 believe and say unseemly things of republican 
 institutions.' But no man in his senses can now 
 believe that such are the feelings of the British 
 nation in general. 
 
 "But, above all, Mr. Balch's publication is 
 valuable as keeping still before the world, at a 
 moment when 'nation is literally rising against 
 nation,' and when universal and obligatory personal 
 service in France is being met by counter demon- 
 strations of the landsturm in Germany, of keeping 
 before the eyes of the world the fact that ' this mode 
 of settling disputes has been fully and successfully 
 tried' by two of the not least powerful and warlike 
 nationalities of the world. It is useful also as free- 
 ing the movement in favor of arbitration from the 
 merely Utopian and extravagant ideas of the 
 peacemakers, the champions of la paix a tout prix, 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. $$ 
 
 which served only (as they did in 1849-50, with 
 Victor Hugo at their head) to turn the whole thing 
 into ridicule. 
 
 "Professor Lorimer's letter of February last and 
 Mr. Balch's comment upon it, show not that wars 
 can ever become impossible, but how far and 
 where arbitrations may be rendered always possible. 
 And in doing this both writers confer a just boon 
 upon their own generation and on posterity." 
 
56 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 II. 
 
 Letter from George H. Yeaman, American Minis- 
 ter to Denmark, to Mr. Balch — T. W. B. 32 
 
 "Legation of the United States, 
 
 "Copenhagen, 26 March, 1867. 
 
 "Dear Sir: — I have read with much interest 
 your letter of the 13 May, 1865, to the Editor 
 of New York Tribune, and now republished in 
 the Social Science for this month, which you have 
 kindly sent me. In that letter you propound what 
 seems to you the best method of amicably settling 
 the pending controversies between the United 
 States and Great Britain. 
 
 "Omitting all discussion of the propriety and 
 feasibility of now referring the matters in dispute 
 to arbitration, the mode you advocate, I only 
 desire to express my decided approbation of your 
 
 32 [George Helm Yeaman, was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, 
 November ist, 1829. He was judge of Daviess County, Kentucky, 
 member of Congress, 1862-1865, and American Minister to Denmark, 
 1865-1870. After that he practised at the New York Bar. He wrote 
 on Naturalization, Privateering, &c. Mr. Yeaman died in 1908. — 
 T. W. B.] 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 57 
 
 suggestion as to the mode of selecting and organ- 
 izing tribunals of arbitration, in cases where the 
 powers interested agree to a reference. That the 
 tribunal or arbiter shall not be the executive head 
 of a government, but a small number of jurists of 
 acknowledged character and learning. 
 
 "I have never believed in the durability and 
 efficacy of any of the schemes for an international 
 tribunal to settle all disputes and prevent all wars. 
 Whether it is well or unfortunate, it is quite clear 
 that in the present stage of the development and 
 practice of political science, there can be no refer- 
 ence but by agreement, and the agreement must be 
 had in each case as it arises, and the tribunal or 
 arbiter must be selected for the occasion. 
 
 "While this remains the only practicable mode 
 of securing the benefits of a reference, every sound 
 reason is against the ordinary plan of selecting a 
 crowned, or other executive, head of a govern- 
 ment, and sustains the plan of selecting a tribunal 
 composed of those who make the understanding 
 and the elucidation of law, in its largest sense as 
 the science of justice, the study of their lives. 
 
 "It is no disparagement of those generally found 
 at the heads of the executive governments of the 
 civilized world, to say that they are not generally 
 
58 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 those best acquainted with jurisprudence; and 
 that every government, of whatever form, nearly 
 always contains within its limits, a number of 
 jurists more learned in their profession, and better 
 qualified by their habits of thought, to conduct 
 such an investigation than the executive head of 
 that government. Neither is it any impeachment 
 of their probity or their desire to render a just 
 judgment to say that executive rulers, are, from 
 their position, more apt to be influenced by mo- 
 tives of policy, or of personal or political partiality; 
 than a Court of international jurists would be, 
 while some, who might render real service in that 
 capacity, would occasionally decline to act on ac- 
 count of the delicate embarrassment in which any 
 action might involve them. And those who con- 
 sent to act, no doubt, often refer the case, for in- 
 vestigation and advice, to a subject of their own 
 selection, one unknown to the parties, at least 
 not agreed upon by them; and, though the award 
 may come formally as from the crown, it is really 
 the opinion of some person not embraced in the 
 reference and who neither incurs blame nor makes 
 reputation by his judgment. Thus the parties are 
 put in the position of abiding by the award of one 
 selected for them by another ; they know not 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 59 
 
 what influenced the selection, and however learned 
 the adviser may be, the parties have not had the 
 advantages of a consultation and comparison of 
 views. These objections manifestly do not apply 
 to the case of an umpire selected in advance by 
 referees in view of the possibility of their own 
 disagreement. 
 
 "Thus the advantages of learning and of free- 
 dom from all improper influences are on the side 
 of a select committee or board of jurists. From 
 their breasts selfishness, jealousy, partiality and 
 refined policy, as applied to the matter before them, 
 are all excluded. They work out their conclusions 
 in the light of usage, precedent, right reason, 
 natural right, science. What of ambition they may 
 have is constrained to be innocent and laudable, 
 for it can only be gratified by building a reputation, 
 which, in their vocation, can have no other founda- 
 tion than justice and truth. The judgments of 
 such tribunals would be sought for and recognized 
 as the highest evidence of what the law is, and they 
 would develop, polish, and make symmetrical, 
 the law of nations, as the judgments of Hardwick, 
 Eldon and Mansfield have done the law of England, 
 and as the judgments of Kent, Marshall and Story 
 have done the law in the United States. 
 
60 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 "I have been much impressed with your obser- 
 vation that this 'would be no trifling event in the 
 march of Democratic Freedom.' It would accel- 
 erate and illustrate the progress of democratic 
 freedom, a freedom that is far more secure against 
 license than any scheme of personal government 
 or irresponsible power can be, because it would be 
 a tribute to the domination of mind, intelligence, 
 reason, science, over accident, force and tradition 
 in the affairs of men. The struggle for that domina- 
 tion is the beginning, and its full consummation 
 is the highest and fairest fruit of democracy. If 
 that element in government has been the most 
 rare and the least successful, it is because that, 
 while appearing to be the most simple, it is really 
 the most difficult, and it is the most difficult be- 
 cause the conditions of its success are the highest 
 and the least frequent among men. 
 
 "Very Respectfully, 
 
 "Your Obedient Servant, 
 
 "GEO. H. YEAMAN. 
 
 "Thomas Balch, Esq., 
 "Paris." 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 6 1 
 
 III. 
 
 This letter of Monsieur Henry Moreau, addressed 
 to the author of this monograph, is written in Eng- 
 lish. He was a distinguished member of the 
 Paris Bar, a member of the Societe de la Legisla- 
 tion Comparee, and the author of La Politique 
 Frangaise en Amerique, 1861-1864, (Paris 1864). 
 
 — T. W. B. 
 
 " Paris, 9 Oct., 1874. 
 
 "370 rue St. Honore. 
 " My Dear Balch: — Many thanks for your kind 
 souvenir. I perused with the greatest interest and 
 satisfaction your remarkable pamphlet on Interna- 
 tional Courts of Arbitration, and found you have 
 given full evidence of your paternal right on this 
 service which ended so happily both for America 
 and England, the quarrels springing from the 
 Alabama matter and the San Juan Boundaries. 
 I thank you also for having mentioned my name 
 in such an honorable company, with the publicists 
 who have illustrated the dark points of Interna- 
 tional Law. 
 
 " HENRY MOREAU, 
 
 " Avocat a la cour d'Appel." 
 
62 INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 
 
 IV- 
 
 Letter of Henry Flanders of the Philadelphia 
 Bar to the editor of this reprint. — T. W. B. 
 
 "Philadelphia, 419 Walnut Street, 
 
 "April 5th, 1910. 
 "Thomas Willing Balch, Esquire, 1412 Spruce Street. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Balch: — Referring to our conver- 
 sation of the 13 th inst. [March] at the Historical 
 Society, I beg to say, that I recall your father's 
 visit to Philadelphia, when he came over from 
 Paris, at the close of our Civil War. 
 
 "At that time there was a great deal of irritation 
 in the public mind, over the unneutral conduct of 
 the British Government, during the progress of 
 that war. Your father was deeply concerned at 
 the state of our relations with Great Britain, and 
 extremely solicitous to avoid a clash of arms be- 
 tween the two countries. How this could be done, 
 seemed to be the engrossing subject of his thoughts. 
 
 "He told me of his visit to President Lincoln, 
 the details of which I have forgotten. I distinctly 
 recall, however, that the President could not be 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTS OF ARBITRATION. 63 
 
 persuaded that your father's scheme of arbitra- 
 tion was practicable. That it did finally prevail; 
 that it has in some sort, well-nigh become a 
 principle of international law, should redound to 
 his credit and esteem among mankind. He was, 
 indeed, a pioneer in a comparatively untrodden 
 field, and as such is entitled to present and future 
 
 praise. 
 
 "Believe me to be 
 
 "Yours very cordially, 
 
 "HENRY FLANDERS." 
 
INDEX. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Alabama, The vii, i, 5, 12, 28, 30, 39, 51, 61 
 
 Arbitration, Court of International. ... 9, 10, 13, 14, 24, 26, 27, 32 
 
 33, Si, 57 
 
 Asser, T. M. C 16 
 
 Balch, Thomas v, vi, 11, 12, 16, 17, 22, 28, 51, 52, 53, 54 
 
 Banks, General. 10 
 
 Columbia College (University) v 
 
 Cobden, Richard vii, 8, 10, 20, 21, 24, 53 
 
 Darby, W. Evans 8 
 
 Field, David Dudley 17 
 
 Flanders, Henry 62 
 
 Greeley, Horace ... 10 
 
 Grotius 26 
 
 Hackett, Frank Warren 19 
 
 Hewitt, Abram S vi 
 
 Huntington, W. H 11, 12, 21, 51 
 
 Kern, J. C 15 
 
 Law Magazine and Review vii 
 
 Lawrence, William Beach 6, 34, 35, 53 
 
 Lincoln, President 2, 10, 21, 62 
 
 L'Institut de Droit International n, 16, 31, 35, 41 
 
 Lorimer, James 11, 27, 28, 29, 31, 42, 52, 55 
 
 Louter, J. de 8 
 
 Moreau, Henry 61 
 
 Napoleon the Third 2 
 
 Northcote, Sir Stafford 17 
 
 Nys, Ernest 8 
 
 Oppenheim, Lassa .......... 9 
 
68 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Pollock, Sir Frederick, Bart 9 
 
 Pennsylvania, Historical Society of vi 
 
 Prevost-Paradol 1 1 
 
 Princeton University v, vii 
 
 Reid, Whitelaw 27, 28 
 
 Revue de Droit International el de Legislation Comparee. . . 16, 17, 42 
 
 Rolin-Jaequemyns 16, 42 
 
 Social Science 16, 17 
 
 Vesnitch, Milenko R 9 
 
 Virginia Historical Society vii 
 
 Wharton, Francis 6 
 
 Westlake, John 8, 16, 17, 35 
 
 Yeaman, George Helm 56 
 
 Zuinglius 26 
 
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