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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924007480894 
 
,„ ^ Cornell University Library 
 
 JX 1428.G7A51 
 
 America and Europe; a study of internatio 
 
 3 1924 007 480 894 
 
America and Europe 
 
 A 
 STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 
 
 1. THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 
 BY DAVID A. WELLS 
 
 II. THE MONROE DOCTRINE 
 BY EDWARD J. PHELPS 
 
 HI. ARBITRATION IN INTERNATIONAL 
 DISPUTES 
 
 BY CARL SCHURZ 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 
 
 NEW 
 
 YORK 
 
 
 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 
 =7 
 
 WEST 
 
 TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 
 
 24 BEDFORD STREET. 
 
 STRAND 
 
 
 
 
 
 a^t 
 
 Jmckctbothtt 
 1896 
 
 i 
 
 rcss 
 
 
 
Copyright, i8g6 
 
 BV 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 Entered at Stationers^ Hall^ London 
 
 Ubc 'Rnicftccbocfeer press, "ftew Jfforft 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. — The United States and Great 
 Britain. — Their True Governmen- 
 tal AND Commercial Relations 3-72 
 By David A. Wells 
 
 II. — The Monroe Doctrine .... 73-100 
 ~ By Edward J. Phelps 
 
 III. — Arbitration in International Dis- 
 putes . . .... 103-128 
 
 By Carl Schurz 
 
THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT 
 BRITAIN. 
 
 THEIR TRUE GOVERNMENTAL AND 
 COMMERCIAL RELATIONS 
 
 By David A. Wells. 
 
THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT 
 BRITAIN.' 
 
 THEIR TRUE GOVERNMENTAL AND COM- 
 MERCIAL RELATIONS. 
 
 By David A. Wells. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the long-continued and 
 extensive commercial relations be- 
 tween the United States and England (using 
 this term as a synonym for the United 
 Kingdom), far more extensive on the part 
 of the former than with any other nation or 
 people ; notwithstanding that the people of 
 the United States and of England are essen- 
 tially of the same blood, language, religion, 
 and political principles, and that a fair 
 acquaintance with English history and litera- 
 ture is regarded in the United States as an 
 essential to a liberal education, there are some 
 
 ' Reprinted, by permission, from the North American Review of 
 April, l8g6 with much additional matter. 
 
 3 
 
4 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 most important characteristics of England's 
 commercial policy and soyereigaty which are 
 not generally recognized in the United States 
 by men claiming to be educated, and which 
 by the masses are so completely ignored as to 
 constitute the occasion for misunderstandings 
 and continual harsh denunciations. If these 
 statements are warranted, it would seem almost 
 necessarily to follow that, if the true relative 
 conditions of the two countries were better 
 understood, it would be conducive to peace 
 and good feeling, and in a high degree in- 
 fluential in respect to a settlement, not only 
 of the present Venezuelan difficulty, but for all 
 possible international estrangements in the 
 future between the two countries. 
 
 That there is much of popular prejudice 
 among the masses in the United States against 
 England cannot be doubted ; and the question 
 is most pertinent. To what is such a state of 
 feeling attributable ? 
 
 A general answer is, to a variety of causes. 
 
 First, to the memory of two wars with the 
 mother country. But in each of these 
 contests, the people of the Anglo-American 
 colonies in the first instance, and the people 
 of the United States in the second, obtained 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 5 
 
 all for which they contended' and the parties 
 and the measures responsible for what 
 happened have long passed into history. And 
 here it may not be uninteresting to call atten- 
 tion to the fact, that the grievance of the 
 colonies which is generally regarded as the 
 prime cause of the American Revolution, 
 namely, that the colonists were taxed by the 
 mother country without representation in 
 Parliament, and had therefore no opportunity 
 of presenting their case, was not in the nature 
 of a special discrimination by the British 
 Government against their transatlantic sub- 
 jects ; inasmuch as historical investigations 
 have since shown, that at the same time not 
 more than one-tenth of the people of England 
 had any vote for, or personal representation 
 in, the British Parliament. 
 
 ' It may be said that the "right of search," the main cause of the 
 war of 1812, was never renounced by England in the subsequent 
 treaty of peace (z. c. of Ghent) or in any other treaty with the 
 United States. This may be technically correct, but at the same 
 time England has never since attempted to exercise this right, cer- 
 tainly so far as American vessels are concerned. It was left for the 
 United States to reopen this question on the affirmative side, when 
 Capt. Wilkes, U. S. N., in contravention of a now universally 
 recognized maritime law, that the flag borne by any vessel makes 
 it a part of the country that it represents, forcibly took from the 
 Trent, a regular British steamer, the persons of Messrs. Slidell 
 and Mason. 
 
6 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 A second cause which has been most influ- 
 ential for prejudice against England, was 
 the policy of the administration of the British 
 Government under Lord Palmerston toward 
 the United States during the period of the 
 civil war. But there is now no question that 
 the masses of the people of England were not 
 in sympathy with their Government in this 
 respect, and that the British working people 
 especially, although brought in large numbers 
 to the verge of starvation, by reason of the 
 inability of their employers to obtain their 
 accustomed supply of cotton from the United 
 States, followed without murmuring the advice 
 of those earnest and constant friends of the 
 Federal Union — Messrs. Cobden and Bright — 
 rather than that of Palmerston and his 
 Ministry. And in illustration of what were 
 the real sentiments of the masses of the 
 United Kingdom during the period when the 
 outlook for the loyal States was most inauspi- 
 cious, it is well to recall that when Mr. Roebuck, 
 as the representative of Lord Palmerston, 
 advocated and moved in the House of Com- 
 mons the recognition of the Southern 
 Confederacy, and backed his recommendation 
 with an acknowledged burst of oratory, in 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 7 
 
 which he said that his only fear of the pending 
 issue of the war was that the South should 
 establish its independence without England's 
 assistance, the House, under the lead and 
 influence of John Bright, voted down Mr. 
 Roebuck and his arguments by such a majority 
 as rendered the adoption of his motion an 
 impossibility. 
 
 It is now well known that it was mainly 
 through the influence or intervention of 
 England's Queen that war did not follow 
 when Admiral Wilkes, in contravention of all 
 international law, seized the Trent, a British 
 steamer, with Messrs. Slidell and Mason, and in 
 the event of which the perpetuation of the 
 Federal Union would have been all but im- 
 possible ; a result which the government of 
 every continental state of Europe, with the 
 possible exception of Russia, would have 
 been glad to have occur ; while the action 
 of the Government of France, under Louis 
 Napoleon, stopped little short of actual 
 hostilities against the Union, and probably 
 would have been more offensive but for the 
 restraining influence of England. 
 
 It is not, therefore, too much to say that 
 when the fate of the Federal Union was- 
 
8 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 hanging, as it were, in the balance, and it was 
 absolutely in the power of England to 
 determine which side should predominate, her 
 action was in favor of the perpetuation of the 
 Union, and that for this the people of the 
 United States owe her a debt of gratitude 
 which has not as yet been by them fully recog- 
 nized and appreciated. ' 
 
 It should also not be forgotten that after the 
 war Great Britain submitted our claim of 
 damages as a nation against her to arbitration, 
 and promptly paid fifteen millions of dollars 
 in cash into the United States Treasury, a sum 
 which, in the opinion of the arbitrators, covered 
 all the legitimate claims of the United States 
 against her.' 
 
 'It is historically interesting to note in this connection that the 
 ideas of Lord Palmerston respecting the United States in 1861-62, 
 which have long since ceased to be in any degree potential with the 
 English people, continue to form an ideal with the people of other 
 countries, as to England's policy of unjustifiable aggression. 
 
 "^ Criticism has been made on this award on the ground that it 
 covered "only such direct damages as could be brought home to 
 particular privateers," and did not consider the question of indirect 
 damages resulting from annihilation of the enormous ante-bellum share 
 of the ocean-carrying trade of the United States by reason of the war 
 and Confederate cruisers. But those who make it overlook the fact, 
 that the remarkable decline in the American ocean mercantile ma- 
 rine commenced at a considerable period before the war. Thus the 
 total tonnage of every description built in the United States declined 
 from 583,000 tons in 1855 to 378,807 tons in 1857 and 212,892 tons 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 9 
 
 With this brief consideration of the causes 
 of prejudice on the part of the people of the 
 United States against England, which, although 
 powerfully operative in the past, ought not to 
 be so now, inasmuch as all the international 
 differences involved have been amicably settled, 
 undeniably to the advantage of the former, 
 and are now only important as matters of his- 
 tory, we come to the consideration of a third 
 cause, which at present is far more potential 
 than the aggregate influence of all other causes, 
 and which is accepted and endorsed as in the 
 nature of a rightful international grievance by 
 nearly every member of our national or state 
 legislatures, and by nearly every newspaper or 
 magazine in the country. And that is the as- 
 
 in i860, a reduction in five years of 68 per cent ; and that in 1861, 
 before the outbreak of the war, there were no ocean steamers away 
 from our own coast, anywhere on the globe, except perhaps those on 
 the route between New York and Havre, which were soon withdrawn. 
 The war helped a decadence which had already commenced by 
 reason of causes that had not even a remote connection with the 
 war ; and this decline has continued, during the quarter of a century 
 and more that has elapsed sin ce the termination of our war, in a greater 
 degree than that experienced during the same period by any other 
 maritime nation. Thus the percentage of the foreign trade of the 
 United States carried in American vessels, which was 35.6 per cent 
 in 1870, was only 11. 7 per cent in 1895. See " United States and 
 Great Britain." By Mayo W. Hazeltine, North American Review, 
 May, i8g6. 
 
I o The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 sumption that the governmental and commer- 
 cial policy of England is characterized by no 
 other principle save to monopolize, through 
 arbitrary, selfish, and unjust measures, every- 
 thing on the earth's surface that can glorify 
 herself and promote the interests of her own 
 insular population, to the detriment of all 
 other nations and peoples ; and that it is the 
 bounden duty of the people and government 
 of the United States, in behalf of popular 
 liberty, civilization, and of Christianity, to put 
 an end to the further continuance of such a 
 policy, even if a resort to war would be 
 necessary to effect it. 
 
 Thus, in a recent speech in the Senate of 
 the United States, Senator Cullom, of Illinois, 
 characterized England as having planted its 
 flag " on all the scattering islands and on nearly 
 every spot on earth where it could monopolize 
 or control the strategic advantages of location 
 for its own interests" ; and that we cannot 
 ^' look with indifference" upon her policy to 
 reach out farther until, if left alone, she will 
 finally dominate Venezuela. And another 
 member of Congress, not to be outdone in 
 this line, publicly expressed the opinion that it 
 was for the interest of the United States to 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 1 1 
 
 put an end to what he termed the " grab-all 
 policy of England." 
 
 The following additional citations of opin- 
 ions recently expressed by influential men in 
 the United States are also pertinent to this 
 subject. 
 
 In an address at a Loyal Legion banquet 
 at Detroit in May, 1896, Hon. D. M. Dickin- 
 son, ex-Postmaster-General, spoke as follows : 
 
 " In the present condition, we may indulge 
 in a reciprocity of polite phrasing and post- 
 prandial exuberance, if our alert watchman 
 will meantime keep an eye on our good friends 
 across the Atlantic, especially when, having 
 appropriated Africa, the islands and even the 
 rocks of the sea, and wherever else force or 
 intrigue may gain a footing, they begin to take 
 an interest, not altogether born of curiosity or 
 of a purely christianizing spirit, in this hemi- 
 sphere. One cannot be so innocent as to be- 
 lieve that the sentiment of relationship or 
 friendship of England to the United States 
 would stand in the way of the settled policy of 
 Great Britain to make Englishmen richer and 
 her power greater, even at our cost. Her un- 
 varying policy is, first and last and always, to 
 advance British interests and retain British 
 
1 2 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 supremacy — to retain and add to British 
 wealth. Her purposes are material. Who- 
 ever gets in the way of that is the enemy of 
 England, and will be so treated — whether it be 
 the United States as a great commercial rival 
 who may be intrigued against and encroached 
 upon and even crippled in some time of her 
 distress, or when off guard, or a tribe of black 
 men in Africa in the way of her colonization 
 schemes, who may be safely massacred with 
 machine guns." 
 
 The following is an extract from a speech 
 made in the Senate of the United States April 
 6, 1895, by Henry Cabot Lodge: 
 
 " The gold monometallic policy of Great 
 Britain, now in force among all great civilized 
 nations, is, I believe, the great enemy of good 
 business throughout the world at this moment. 
 Therefore, it seems to me, if there is any way 
 in which we can strike England's trade or her 
 moneyed interest, it is our clear policy to do 
 it in the interest of silver." 
 
 Extract from a speech of Hon. Joseph 
 Hawley, U. S. S., at the banquet of the alumni 
 of Hamilton College, New York, February, 
 1896. 
 
 "The English people are a very good peo- 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 1 3 
 
 pie, but they are not the British Government. 
 That is another thing ; and in every emergency 
 with which the United States has been con- 
 fronted the British Government has been our 
 enemy. She is pushing us on every side now. 
 She is trying to straddle the Nicaraguan canal 
 and to grab the Alaskan goldfields. When- 
 ever she gets hold of a bit of land, from that 
 time her boundary line is afloat. Look at the 
 map of India, and stop and think. That 
 began with a trading company — English, and 
 British arms and a British warship to help it 
 to its rights. And now India is all a British 
 possession. That is the kind of a nation that 
 we are facing. Look at their fancy drill the 
 other day, when in five days a powerful squad- 
 ron was gathered at the stated point. Is 
 there no object lesson for America in 'that? 
 I tell you that we must be ready to fight. 
 Either we will float a dead whale on the ocean, 
 or we must say to Great Britain, ' Here is 
 where you stop ! ' " 
 
 " He" (the British lion) "is a prowler in 
 search of prey which is land — land anywhere, 
 everywhere — land to convert the present boast 
 of possessing one-third of the earth's surface 
 into one of holding one-half, and then two- 
 
14 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 thirds — land, more land, to extend the tribute 
 to be paid the British Crown indefinitely." — 
 Correspondent Springfield Republican. 
 
 " There is no power on the face of the earth 
 that we need fear trouble with except Eng- 
 land." — President Capen, Tuffs College. 
 
 " The growing strength of the British navy 
 is a menace to the rest of the world ; it is 
 intended to be, and as such it ought to be 
 crushed." — Reported interview with Rear-Ad- 
 miral George E. Belknap, U. S. N. {Retired^. 
 
 Such then are typical examples of the counts 
 in the international indictment which popular 
 sentiment in the United States now prefers 
 against England : and which leading legislators 
 and influential newspapers assume and assert 
 to be correct. But are they correct ? Are 
 they warranted by evidence ? The only pos- 
 sible honest answer having any regard for 
 truth is, that they are not correct ; that they 
 do not contain one element that should com- 
 mend them to the acceptance and belief of 
 honest and intelligent men ; not one count 
 which, if tried before an honest and competent 
 tribunal, would not by them (to employ a legal 
 phrase) be promptly " quashed." 
 
 In elucidation of this subject, and for deter- 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 1 5 
 
 mination of the correctness of the above asser- 
 tions, consideration is first asked of what might 
 fairly be regarded as almost a test case. Thus 
 the leading prejudicial charge preferred against 
 England is, that her governmental and com- 
 mercial policy and action are always dominated 
 by a desire to create for herself something in 
 the nature of monopolies, which shall inure 
 to her exclusive advantage ; and from parti- 
 cipation in which foreign nations shall, to the 
 greatest extent possible, be excluded. Accept- 
 ing now the universal dictionary definition of 
 "monopoly" in the above sense, namely, "to 
 engross or obtain by any means the exclusive 
 right of trading in any place, and the sole 
 power of vending any commodity or goods 
 in a particular place or country " (Webster) ; 
 " a right of exclusive sale — an exclusive priv- 
 ilege to carry on a traffic" (Century), the 
 writer would respectfully request Messrs. 
 Cullom, Dickinson, Hawley, Lodge, or any 
 other person who agrees with them in senti- 
 ment, to specify some one thing in respect to 
 which England enjoys and maintains a mo- 
 nopoly (excepting, of course, the monopoly of 
 sovereignty, in default of which there can 
 be no certain government), or that which is 
 
1 6 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 created and exists when a government assumes 
 exclusive control of the production and sale 
 of any article for the purpose of revenue, 
 as when the United States will not permit 
 a gallon of distilled spirits to be removed 
 from the place of its production, or from a 
 bonded warehouse, for use or consumption, 
 without the previous payment of a tax. 
 
 A popular and ready answer would probably 
 be land. But there is not a square foot of 
 the earth's surface over which the flag of 
 England floats which the citizen of the 
 United States, in common with the people 
 of all other countries, has not a right to 
 enter upon, possess, control, and enjoy on 
 terms as favorable as are now ever granted 
 to any Englishman. The only possible ex- 
 ception to this statement is that England, 
 in common with all colonizing nations that 
 establish governments over lands obtained 
 from barbarous people, often finds it necessary 
 to exercise some restraint over the first occu- 
 pants of such territory, in order that the 
 desired progress in respect to civilization may 
 not be retarded, and possibly defeated. 
 
 A most striking and instructive exemplifi- 
 cation of the liberal and enlightened policy of 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 1 7 
 
 England in this respect is found in the recent 
 history of South Africa. In 1876-77, when 
 the safety of Europeans in South Africa was 
 menaced by a general revolt of the dark- 
 skinned races, England assumed the control of 
 the Government of the "Transvaal," or South 
 African Republic, a name since given to a 
 large section of country northeast of Cape 
 Colony ; no other Government coveting the 
 task or expense of so doing. Subsequently, 
 in order to provide for the common safety of 
 the various people who, allured by the diamond 
 fields and other inducements were flocking 
 into the country, some rules of government 
 became necessary ; and, accordingly, at a con- 
 vention of South African representatives, 
 assembled in 188 1, at Pretoria, the capital of 
 the country, a code of rules or laws, drafted 
 and presented by the British Colonial Office 
 in London, was adopted. Of this code the 
 most important section or rule. No. XIV., 
 reads as follows : 
 
 " All persons other than natives [who were 
 then typical savages] conforming themselves 
 to the laws of the South African Republic {a) 
 will have full liberty, with their families, to 
 enter, travel, or reside in any part of the 
 
1 8 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 South African Republic ; {U) they will be 
 entitled to hire or possess houses, shops, and 
 premises ; {c) they may carry on their com- 
 merce either in person or by any agents they 
 may think fit to employ ; {d) they will not 
 be subject in respect of their persons or prop- 
 erty, or in respect of their commerce or in- 
 dustry, to any taxes, whether general or local, 
 other than those which are or may be imposed 
 upon citizens of the said Republic." 
 
 The following question is here most perti- 
 nent to those who consider it the part of 
 true American statesmanship and intelligence, 
 to popularly assert the " unvarying policy " of 
 England to be, first, last, and always, to retain 
 British supremacy, for the purpose of retain- 
 ingand adding " to British wealth " : Can they 
 cite one other single instance in the world's 
 history, where a great and strong government, 
 coming into undisputable possession and con- 
 trol of a great area of the earth's surface, 
 abounding with almost illimitable elements of 
 natural wealth, and consequent vast oppor- 
 tunities for exclusive trade, commerce, and the 
 collection of revenue, has freely said to all the 
 people of all the other nations and governments: 
 Come and share all these advantages equally 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 1 9 
 
 with us? We offer them to you subject to no con- 
 ditions or restraint, except respect and obedi- 
 ence to such laws, in consonance with the above 
 accepted XIV. rule, as the people themselves 
 shall establish. And had the principles of 
 this rule been adhered to by all interested 
 parties, there would have been no trouble in 
 the Transvaal. 
 
 But it may be asked. How about trade ? 
 Does not England extend privileges to her 
 own subjects, and impose discriminations 
 against the people of the other nations and 
 countries in respect to trade and commerce ? 
 And here again we are obligated to return 
 a similar answer, namely : that England 
 grants no privileges to her own people in 
 respect to trade and commerce, which are not 
 equally accorded to the people of all other 
 countries ; and that there is no country 
 over which the sovereignty of England ex- 
 tends, where the people of all other countries 
 — white, black, yellow, and red — do not have 
 the right or privilege of trade, in its broadest 
 sense of exporting and importing, buying, 
 selling, or transporting, on the same terms as 
 are enjoyed by her immediate and typical 
 subjects. In dealing with other countries, 
 
20 TTie United States and Great Britain. 
 
 England has never been guilty of the brutal 
 incivility of telling any one of them desiring 
 reciprocal trade with her and too feeble to 
 take offence at insult, what the United States 
 told Mexico, in 1866, through its House of 
 Representatives, " that to speak of permanent 
 desirable commercial relations" with her "is 
 without hope of success, or promise of sub- 
 stantial results." 
 
 A very common feature of any discussion 
 in the United States of the trade or commer- 
 cial policy of England in respect to other na- 
 tions, is the preference of a charge against her, 
 of having, more than a half a century ago, in- 
 stituted a war " in order to force poor China 
 to take the opium that England was trying 
 to compel her to import, no matter what the 
 great evils resulting." For this charge, which 
 has been popularly regarded as irrefutable, 
 there is no good or sufficient warrant ; further 
 than that, complete evidence to the contrary 
 has only within a recent period become popu- 
 larly accessible through the publication of 
 English state papers ; although the would-be 
 American authorities on this subject might, in 
 at least a degree, have become cognizant of the 
 exact truth (as will be presently shown), had 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 2 1 
 
 they taken the trouble to acquaint themselves 
 with the published results of an investigation 
 of this subject by one of their own and great- 
 est statesmen, whose opinions have always 
 commanded almost universal respect. A sum- 
 mary of the indisputable facts in the case are 
 as follows : 
 
 Previous to the inception of the so-called 
 "opium war" between England and China 
 {i. e. in 1840), opium was cultivated in no less 
 than ten of the provinces of China, and its 
 importation was permitted and regularly 
 taxed, the same as any other imports. Opium, 
 the product of India, was imported into China 
 by the East India Company under such cir- 
 cumstances, and without inhibition ; but to an 
 estimated extent of not more than two per 
 cent of what would then have been necessary 
 to meet the demand of the whole Chinese 
 population. The charge that England first 
 introduced opium into China has, therefore, 
 not the slightest foundation in facts. 
 
 Some time previous to 1840 the Chinese 
 Government, believing the use of this drug to 
 be detrimental to their people, prohibited, not 
 merely its importation but its use for any pur- 
 pose, and any violation of these enactments 
 
2 2 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 was made a capital offence. As the appetite 
 for opium on the part of the Chinese was not 
 thereby extinguished, and the supply of a con- 
 sequent continued demand for it becoming ex- 
 ceedingly profitable, the business of smuggling 
 and illicit dealing became very great, and is now 
 known to have been largely participated in by 
 the very Chinese officials whose business it 
 was to enforce the law. The Chinese Govern- 
 ment, furthermore, was not more successful 
 in enforcing their law against opium than was 
 the enlightened and christianized Government 
 of the United States in enforcing, in 1867, a 
 tax of $2.00 per gallon on distilled spirits, 
 when out of an annual product and consump- 
 tion of at least 50,000,000 gallons it was only 
 able to take cognizance for revenue purposes of 
 less than 7,000,000 gallons. What was then 
 also the policy of the British Government 
 towards China is demonstrated by the fact 
 that Lord Palmerston, then Premier, sent a 
 despatch to the British resident agent in China, 
 to the efifect that if any British subject chose 
 to contravene the laws of China in respect to 
 trade in opium, " he must do it at his own 
 risk." On the other hand, the Chinese Gov- 
 ernment, from the very outset of the opium 
 
77^!^ United States and Great Britain. 23 
 
 trouble, refused to enter into any negotiations 
 with the representatives of the British Govern- 
 ment, not so in the interests of the opium 
 trade ; not in the interest of trade at all ; but in 
 order to put the relations of the two govern- 
 ments on a footing that would be tolerable, 
 and induce the Chinese to no longer assume 
 that all foreigners were barbarians, and that 
 barbarians must be kept under control. When 
 Lord Napier was sent as Minister to China in 
 1834, its Government declined to have any- 
 thing to do with him, and went out of its way 
 to belittle him by using offensive characters 
 for his name, and in other ways insult him. 
 When Lord Napier, fairly driven out of China 
 by insults, was replaced by Sir Charles Elliot, 
 the Chinese authorities in Canton, for the pur- 
 pose of deliberate insult to foreigners in gen- 
 eral, proposed to make the area in front of the 
 so-called "factories," where British merchants 
 and the citizens of other countries were vir- 
 tually compelled to reside, a place for the pub- 
 lic execution of criminals. 
 
 As might have been expected, war followed 
 such a condition of things, though there was 
 no formal declaration of war by either of the 
 participating parties. It was virtually com- 
 
24 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 menced by the Chinese, who sent a fleet of 
 fire-ships to burn the English shipping in the 
 harbor of Canton. England succeeded in 
 obtaining from the Chinese Government a 
 promise, (that was not, however, kept,) that 
 the persons and property of the merchants 
 of all nations trading with China should be 
 protected in the future .from insult and injury, 
 and that their trade and commerce should be 
 maintained upon a footing common to all 
 foreign civilized countries. And if England 
 had not undertaken the task of teaching the 
 Chinese this initiatory lesson, the Government 
 of the United States would sooner or later 
 have been obliged so to do, if they were to 
 maintain peaceful commercial relations and 
 trade with China. 
 
 The so-called "opium war" of 1840, thus 
 brought about, attracted much attention in the 
 United States, as the interests of its merchants 
 prospectively involved, was at that time very 
 considerable. And among those of its citizens 
 who especially considered the subject was ex- 
 President John Quincy Adams, who gave to 
 the American public, in December, 1841, the 
 results of his investigations and study, in the 
 form of a lecture before the Massachusetts 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 2 5 
 
 Historical Society, which was subsequently 
 reprinted in the Chinese Repository, an Amer- 
 ican missionary paper published in Canton. 
 After tracing historically what had occurred 
 up to the year 1841, Mr. Adams said: " Do 
 I hear you inquire what is all this to the 
 opium question, or the taking of Canton ? 
 These, I answer, are but that movement of 
 mind on this globe of earth of which the war 
 between Great Britain and China is now the 
 leading star — The justice of the cause between 
 the two parties — which has the righteous 
 cause ? I answer, Britain has the righteous 
 cause. The opium question is not the cause 
 of the war ; but the arrogant and insupportable 
 pretensions of China, that she will hold com- 
 mercial intercourse with the rest of mankind, 
 not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon 
 the insulting and degrading forms of the rela- 
 tion between lord and vassal." 
 
 The assertion that " the gold metallic policy 
 of Great Britain is the great enemy of good 
 business throughout the world," and that " if 
 there is any way in which we {i. e., the people 
 of the United States) can strike England's 
 trade or her moneyed interest, it is our clear 
 policy to do it in the interest of silver," would 
 
26 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 seem to be the utterance of an insane person ; 
 or, if not insane, of one who does not know, 
 and despises knowledge. As well expect Eng- 
 land, for the furtherance " of good business 
 throughout the world," to substitute crooked 
 sticks for metal plows ; transportation on men's 
 and mules' backs in place of wagons ; wagons 
 in place of railroad cars ; canoes in place of 
 ships, and sails in place of steam, as to expect 
 her to substitute what large experience has 
 proved to be the best money instrumentality 
 for effecting exchanges on the part of the 
 great commercial nations, for one that is best 
 fitted for people and countries that have com- 
 paratively small exchanges with the outside 
 world, and are low down in civilization. 
 
 A brief word here to avoid misapprehension, 
 and in further illustration of the exception- 
 ally liberal policy of the British (Home) Gov- 
 ernment. The sovereignty of England is said 
 to cover about one-third of the earth's surface. 
 It includes forty separate so-called colonies, 
 which embrace about one-fourth of the popula- 
 tion of the globe. Whenever the population 
 of any of these colonies becomes considerable, 
 and there is a manifest and intelligent desire 
 on the part of its inhabitants to be emanci- 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 2 7 
 
 pated from close dependence on the mother 
 country, England grants them a substantially 
 free and independent government. The num- 
 ber of such colonies having an exclusive and 
 responsible representative government is at 
 present nine, and a clear and interesting illus- 
 tration of their working is afforded in the case 
 of Canada, which has a population of about 
 5,000,000. England appoints a Governor, 
 whose duties are mainly ceremonial and nom- 
 inal. The people of Canada elect their own 
 legislators, their ministers, or state administra- 
 tors ; and the concurrence of the Crown is not 
 required in the appointment of any public 
 officer below the Governor. Under a govern- 
 ment thus organized, Canada makes its own 
 laws ; imposes and collects its own taxes, and 
 determines their expenditure ; maintains its 
 own rr^ilitary forces ; establishes its own bank- 
 ing and currency system, and its own educa- 
 tional, sanitary, and police provisions. One 
 of the few restraining conditions on the com- 
 plete independence of Canada and the other 
 self-governing colonies of the British Empire 
 is, that they are not allowed to treat at first 
 hand with foreign Governments, for the evi- 
 dent reason that the smallest as well as the 
 
28 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 largest of the British possessions may other- 
 wise involve the Empire in more or less diffi- 
 cult and critical negotiations with foreign 
 powers. The self-governing colonies are not, 
 however, compelled to accept the settlement 
 of any difficulty they may have with a foreign 
 government, which may be recommended to 
 them by their Home Government ; and this has 
 been referred to as the link at which the moor- 
 ing chains of the larger British colonies to the 
 mother country are most likely (if ever) to 
 snap. 
 
 As a rule, the Home Government is reluc- 
 tant to intervene in the affairs of her self- 
 governing colonies without special invitation, 
 except in respect to the selection and control 
 of strategical positions regarded as important 
 for the defence of the Empire. One, and one 
 only (interesting), exception to the rule, that 
 the British colonies shall not treat directly 
 with foreign powers, has been made, and that 
 in the case of Canada ; which, unquestionably 
 in view of her possible reciprocal trade rela- 
 tions with the United States, is allowed to 
 negotiate directly with foreign nations in re- 
 spect to her commercial tariff. England does 
 not attempt, and never has attempted, to en- 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 29 
 
 force her free-trade policy in any of her self- 
 governing colonies. On the other hand, Great 
 Britain will not abandon her own free-trade 
 policy for the purpose of obtaining preferential 
 treatment in her colonies. Thus Canada, as 
 well as other of the British colonies, having 
 adopted the "protective" policy, accordingly 
 imposes duties on her imports which in some 
 instances are very high, and almost prohibi- 
 tive. But whatever may be the tariff rates 
 established by Canada, or by any of the other 
 British colonies, they are uniform as respects 
 the imports of all nations ; and no discriminat- 
 ing rates would be sanctioned by the Imperial 
 Government in any colonial tariff rates unless 
 to meet an equivalent discrimination.' The 
 fact also that the tariff rates of Canada are 
 regarded by the mercantile community of Eng- 
 land as prejudicial to their interests, and have 
 long been a subject of complaint, has never 
 induced the Home Government to take action 
 on the subject. Another illustration to the 
 same effect is to be found in the fact, that 
 
 ' It is now a rule of the Imperial Government not to include her 
 colonies in any commercial arrangement with foreign countries with- 
 out their own consent. The law officers of the Crown have also held 
 that under certain recent treaties her colonies are prevented from 
 granting any differential favors to Great Britain. 
 
30 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 when the Council of India (the immediate gov- 
 erning power of that country), partly for the 
 purpose of revenue, and partly at the demand 
 of Indian manufacturers for protection, im- 
 posed a custom tax on the importation of 
 cotton fabrics into India, the manufacturers of 
 England united in opposition to such an ex- 
 tent that it constituted an important element 
 in the recent election that resulted in the dis- 
 placement of the Liberal (Rosebery) adminis- 
 tration ; and yet the Indian duties on the 
 importation of British cotton fabrics have not 
 as yet been abrogated. 
 
 The allegation that the British Government 
 exacts tributes of its subjects has not even so 
 much as a shadow of a foundation. The Brit- 
 ish Government has respected the possessions 
 of the native chiefs of India ; and about one- 
 third of the country still nominally remains in 
 the hands of its hereditary rulers. These, in 
 return for their maintenance and protection by 
 the Imperial Government, contribute annually 
 from their resources a comparatively small 
 sum for its support ; which appears in the of- 
 ficial financial statements under the name of 
 " Tribute," or " Contributions," from " Feuda- 
 tory States." But the sum thus received is 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 3 1 
 
 probably more than paid back in the form of 
 annual pensions to the native princes and 
 their families, and in expenses contingent 
 on the supervision of their governmental ad- 
 ministrations. England does not take from 
 any of her citizens or subjects as much 
 as a sixpence which can merit the name of 
 tribute. She expects that such of her col- 
 onies as have sought and been accorded the 
 right of self-government will, in the main, de- 
 fray the expenses of such government. And 
 this they do by such methods of taxation as 
 legislators chosen by them shall determine ; 
 subject only to the limitation that the taxes 
 imposed shall be uniform on all persons and 
 on all subjects of trade or commerce. Thus 
 the comparatively small island of Jamaica, 
 with a population in 1891 of 639,431, of which 
 more than two-thirds are negroes, has a legis- 
 lative assembly, and by its enactment collects 
 a considerable revenue from export duties on 
 rum. But if an Englishman desires to export 
 this commodity from Jamaica he cannot do it 
 under any more favorable terms than are ac- 
 corded to a citizen of the United States, or of 
 any other country. Even the very small group 
 of West India Islands known as the " Cay- 
 
3 2 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 mans," with a population of less than five 
 thousand, have their own legislative council 
 and enact their own laws. 
 
 In all of the thirty-one colonies of England, 
 which are not self-governing, and in which the 
 Crown has an effective control of legislation, 
 and also over the public officers, special atten- 
 tion is given to popular education ; and schools 
 have been established, which, as a rule, are 
 free and non-sectarian, are liberally aided by 
 Government grants, and attendance upon 
 which is often compulsory. Thus, in the island 
 of Jamaica, there were in 1892 nearly nine 
 hundred government schools, besides many 
 private schools. In South Africa — Cape Col- 
 ony — the British Government makes large 
 annual grants in aid of education in every 
 stage. The number of assisted schools is 
 about one thousand, and in aid of them the 
 Government grants about an equal sum with 
 that raised by free and voluntary effort. In- 
 dustrial training is also specially provided for 
 boys and girls of the aboriginal population, of 
 whom about fifty thousand at present are 
 reported as attending school. Even in the 
 much criticised little colony of Honduras, 
 in Central America, with a population of 
 
The United States and Great Britain, 33 
 
 less than 30,000, and the only one of the 
 Central American States south of Mexico 
 that does not habitually revolutionize, the 
 Government aids in the keeping up of de- 
 nominational schools, as none other prob- 
 ably would be countenanced by the people ; 
 but subjects them to regular and close inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 During the last quarter of a century the 
 Established Church of England has collected 
 and expended more than $400,000,000 for 
 foreign and domestic missions, for building 
 and repairing churches, and for other religious 
 objects. In addition it is also estimated, that 
 Englishmen of different creeds and denomina- 
 tions at present contribute for domestic re- 
 ligious purposes about $50,000,000 annually. 
 As to the extent of the private charity of the 
 people of the United Kingdom, some idea may 
 be formed from the fact that $25,000,000 is 
 believed to be annually contributed in London 
 alone for such objects. 
 
 In fact England leads the way in her efforts, 
 independent of creed or sects, to educate the 
 world's population, and probably accomplishes 
 more in this direction than all the rest of the 
 civilized and christianized nations. 
 
34 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 A half century ago England, at the cost of 
 $100,000,000, and without shedding a drop of 
 blood, abolished slavery. A quarter of a 
 century later the United States effected the 
 same result at a cost of several hundred thou- 
 sand lives, and over nine thousand millions of 
 money, or property. 
 
 Note next what England has further accom- 
 plished in this direction. In 1843, she abol- 
 ished slavery in all her East India possessions, 
 and in one day made 12,000,000 people free. 
 Previous to 1890, the group of islands and a 
 coast strip of about 12,000 square miles, known 
 as Zanzibar, was the headquarters of the slave- 
 traders of eastern Africa, and the greatest 
 slave-market of the world. The influence of 
 the Sultan of Zanzibar, in favor of slavery, was 
 paramount also from the eastern coast of Africa 
 even as far into the interior as the head-waters 
 of the Congo. In 1890, England assumed a 
 protectorate over Zanzibar, and almost con- 
 temporaneously that country ceased to be a 
 slave-market, and its wily Arab slave-traders 
 soon learned from bitter experience with a 
 portion of England's navy detailed for their 
 supervision, that any further attempts to im- 
 port slaves from eastern Africa was attendant 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 35 
 
 with imminent deadly perils to those prosecut- 
 ing such business. 
 
 Again, one of the most recent results of the 
 British occupation of Egypt has been a practi- 
 cal abolition of human slavery. Under existing 
 regulations (established during the past year, 
 1895), every slave in Egypt (a former great 
 market for the enslaved people of Africa) may 
 demand his manumission if he chooses ; and if 
 the Soudan be retaken by Egyptian troops 
 under British leadership, it will be equivalent 
 to opening the prison doors to hundreds of 
 thousands of captives. 
 
 The general result of this policy of England 
 may be finally summed up by saying, that to- 
 day wherever the British flag floats in sover- 
 eignty no man can, under any circumstances, 
 hold any other man as a slave. 
 
 The people of the United States naturally 
 and rightfully take pride in the declaration of 
 their ancestors that " all men are created 
 equal," and " endowed by their Creator " with 
 an inalienable right to liberty. But what the 
 descendants of these ancestors have done to 
 exemplify and enforce this great declaration, 
 will when tested by evidence, not be found to 
 compare favorably with what England, without 
 vaunting herself, has practically accomplished. 
 
36 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 A reflection is made on England for mas- 
 sacring tribes of black men in Africa with 
 machine guns. But machine guns could never 
 be used for a better purpose than to put a stop 
 at once and forever, as England has done 
 wherever she has sovereignty, to the ancient 
 and horrible savagery of human sacrifices and 
 cannibalism. And when England has once 
 put down savagery, that rendered civilization 
 impossible, her treatment of thef subjugated 
 and uncivilized has always been merciful. The 
 conquered Kafifir or Zulu of South Africa has 
 become under English rule a freeman, en- 
 dowed for the first time with an absolute title 
 to land, and other property the results of his 
 own labor ; and if injustice is done him the 
 English court is open to him for redress and 
 protection as speedily and impartially as to any 
 white man. 
 
 The British American colonies have never 
 warred with their Indians, and never robbed 
 them of their land, but have always dealt kindly 
 and justly by them. A current proverb in the 
 United States, that the only good Indian is a 
 dead Indian, finds no favor in Canada. Eng- 
 land, moreover, is the only nation that has 
 ever established a hospital exclusively for the 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 3 7 
 
 care of sick or suffering North American In- 
 dians, On the other hand, the treatment of 
 our Indians by the United States has always 
 been notoriously arbitrary and bad. It has 
 sequestered their land ; arbitrarily abrogated 
 its treaties with them ; almost continually pro- 
 voked them to hostilities, and nearly effected 
 their extermination. 
 
 Senator Hawley extends an invitation to the 
 people of the United States to "look at the 
 map of India, and stop and think," for the 
 purpose of understanding " the kind of nation 
 that we are facing": "for now India is all a 
 British possession." This is most excellent 
 advice. Let us accept it. Before England 
 acquired control of India, the mass of her great 
 population was almost as low down in the 
 scale of civilization as it was possible to con- 
 ceive. From the time of Alexander the Great, 
 and probably for unnumbered centuries before, 
 the experience of the country had been one of 
 constant war and disorder, contingent in great 
 part on foreign invasions, and in part on the 
 bitter antagonism of domestic religious creeds 
 and diversity of races. The Indian ryot 
 (peasant) was practically a slave, with no 
 acknowledged right to the products of his 
 
38 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 labor ; and when any one, of either high or 
 low degree, acquired anything in the way of 
 money-wealth, it was almost the universal 
 practice to speedily secrete it under ground, 
 to prevent its arbitrary plunder on the part of 
 rulers ; so that the amount of buried treasure, 
 even to this day, in India is regarded as almost 
 fabulous. There can be no denial that Eng- 
 land acquired control of India in the first in- 
 stance by conquest and arbitrary methods. 
 But in this respect she acted in accordance 
 with the then accepted policy of all other 
 nations ; and as at the time when England 
 mainly acquired possession of India the United 
 States did not exist, and her people were a 
 part of England, and as they did not protest, 
 it is difficult to see how they can now animad- 
 vert on the action of England without passing 
 censure on themselves. It is also well to re- 
 call that England never did a meaner thing in 
 respect to the acquisition of territory than did 
 the United States in 1848, when, under a claim 
 of higher civilization, she robbed, without 
 justification, and at " one fell swoop," poor 
 Mexico of more than one half of all its 
 territory. 
 
 The point of interest in respect to England's 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 39 
 
 connection with India is not what she did a 
 hundred years and more ago, but what she has 
 done within a comparatively recent period, 
 and what she is doing now. Her work of 
 ameliorating the condition of her Indian sub- 
 jects virtually commenced in 1 843, when slavery 
 (as before stated) was abolished in all of her 
 East Indian possessions. To-day the humblest 
 Indian peasant is secure in the possession and 
 control of his property, and if wronged in any 
 way can appeal to and find protection in the 
 courts which England has established. As 
 one result of this policy the buried treasures 
 of India are beginning to come forth and seek 
 investment in England's interest-bearing se- 
 curities. Under native and Mogul rulers, the 
 only compulsory contribution from the Indian 
 people, worthy of the name of a tax, was an 
 assessment on land, which averaged about 
 twelve shillings per acre. To-day the land tax 
 of India, which the Government has been 
 obliged to maintain for general revenue pur- 
 poses, does not average more than $1.53 per 
 acre. Before England assumed dominion 
 in India the system of exaction of her native 
 rulers was so perfected that they were assured 
 of the very last penny that could be taken from 
 
40 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 the farmers and cattle raisers without stripping 
 them of everything ; leaving to the tenant class 
 little other than the privilege of living. To- 
 day the existing system of taxation in India is 
 conceded to be, at least, eminently just. Men 
 of native races constitute a part of the highest 
 Indian judiciary ; and by an act affirmed by 
 the Imperial Government it has been ordained 
 " that no native of the territories of India, or 
 any natural-born subject of Great Britain resi- 
 dent therein, shall, by reason of his religion, 
 birth, descent, color, or any one of them, be 
 disabled from any place, office, or employment 
 under its government." Under native rule, 
 the population of India was kept down by war 
 and local feuds to a great extent ; but under 
 the British rule of peace it has increased to a 
 degree so disproportionate to existing agricul- 
 tural resources, that famines are often con- 
 tingent on the deficiency of crops through 
 natural influences. To meet such a lament- 
 able condition of affairs the British Govern- 
 ment has reserved from its annual revenues, 
 and so created, a large " famine fund," which 
 is solely applicable to relieving popular distress 
 occasioned by a scarcity of food. Has any- 
 thing like this ever been done by any other 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 41 
 
 civilized and Christianized Government ? In 
 fact, it is not too much to say that the present 
 population of India would not have found food 
 under any previous government of that 
 country ; and that its very existence has been 
 made possible only through the conditions of 
 food production and distribution established 
 by England's government. 
 
 How considerately and kindly the British 
 Government has dealt with the people of India 
 under its rule is further demonstrated by the 
 following additional evidence. When Warren 
 Hastings was Governor of Bengal (or in 1772) 
 he laid down a rule that " in all suits regarding 
 marriage, inheritance, and caste, and other re- 
 ligious usages and institutions, the laws of the 
 Koran with respect to Mohammedans, and 
 those of the Shaster with respect to Gentoos 
 (Hindus), should be invariably adhered to." 
 And this regard for native creed and usage is 
 still maintained. On the other hand, the 
 criminal law and the law of civil and criminal 
 procedures throughout all of India has been 
 changed to make it conformable to the Eng- 
 lish codes ; and one recognized effect of this 
 has been to impress on a vast area of humanity, 
 over which brute force formerly reigned, a good 
 
42 The United States and Great Uritain. 
 
 deal of the Anglo-Saxon respect for law. It is 
 also worthy of note in this connection that 
 under English rule not a few old-time immoral 
 customs — as the " suttee," or the burning of 
 widows, and female infanticide — have been 
 prohibited by law. 
 
 Popular education in India is systematically 
 promoted by England ; and the number of 
 schools supported or aided by public funds, 
 and controlled by departments of education in 
 every province, is now upwards of 1 50,000 ; 
 rising from elementary village schools to high 
 schools and colleges. 
 
 Since the Indian mutiny in 1 857, the Govern- 
 ment has expended a large amount — at present 
 many millions per annum — on works of public 
 utility for the purpose of increasing and 
 cheapening (through roads, canals, and rail- 
 roads) the means of transportation, for pro- 
 moting irrigation, and especially for favoring 
 the use of new tools and new methods for 
 cultivating the soil. The result of this policy 
 has been greatly to increase the annual food 
 product of the country and the opportunities 
 for the industrial employment of its people. 
 Thus in 1880 India exported less than 500,000 
 bushels of wheat, but at the present time her 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 43 
 
 annual export is not less than 40,000,000 
 bushels. The expansion of India's commerce 
 has been greater in recent years than that of 
 her population ; and within a decade has in- 
 creased forty-two per cent, and population only 
 ten per cent. 
 
 One blessing which the British occupation 
 of India has given the world should not be 
 overlooked. Formerly all cinchona bark, from 
 which quinine is manufactured, came from the 
 forests of the northwestern states of South 
 America ; and as the cinchona trees were not 
 under any system of cultivation, and as the 
 methods of collecting their bark were destruc- 
 tive of the tree, it was easy to see that, under 
 a continually increasing demand, this most im- 
 portant natural product would soon be ex- 
 hausted. Moved by such considerations, the 
 Government of England determined to make 
 the attempt to cultivate the cinchona tree in 
 India, and, calling in the aid of the best botan- 
 ists, finally succeeded in so doing, although a 
 previous effort in the same direction on the 
 part of the Dutch Government had failed in 
 Java. The result has been that the supply of 
 quinine is now practically inexhaustible ; and 
 in place of being formerly worth its weight in 
 
44 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 gold, its price is now brought within the means 
 of the poorest people, who most need it. How 
 British Indian quinine has become an instru- 
 mentality of war, as well as of peace, is shown 
 by the fact that the French in Madagascar, 
 and the Spaniards in Cuba, have recently 
 deemed an adequate supply of it as essential 
 as that of shot or shell. 
 
 In short, there is no government in the 
 world whose administration is more honestly 
 conducted, and which is doing more for the 
 material good of the governed, than the pres- 
 ent English Government of India, And the 
 secret of England's success in ruling the vast 
 congeries of people known as India, a fifth of 
 the population of the globe — 288,000,000 in 
 1 89 1 , — made up of different races and religions, 
 and with eighty different languages, is mainly 
 due to the fact that in no country, except 
 America and Great Britain, is the individual 
 so little interfered with by the Government. 
 No kind of pressure is put upon the Indian to 
 be anything but what he pleases. He is ex- 
 empt from military conscription. He may 
 profess what religion he likes ; express any 
 opinion ; enjoy the right of public meeting ; 
 and can criticise the Government freely with- 
 
The United States and Great Britaiti. 45 
 
 out fear of consequences. And the attitude 
 of the EngHsh Government towards its sub- 
 jects in later years, not only in India, but in 
 all her other colonies and dependencies, has 
 been always one of help and encouragement. 
 
 England however, does not control all of 
 India. The Portuguese, who were the pio- 
 neers in Eastern conquest, still retain a do- 
 minion over about 1500 square miles on the 
 west coast of the Hindostan, and its native 
 inhabitants are now in revolt. Portugal has 
 sent a military force from Europe to suppress 
 it, and its governor in command has made 
 proclamation to the rebels that, unless they lay 
 down their arms, means will be taken for their 
 extermination, that villages will be burnt or 
 destroyed in succession, and all in arms will be 
 liable to be shot. The people of British 
 India are at peace ; and, if the Portuguese 
 rebels are successful, they will probably like 
 nothing better than to come under the sover- 
 eignty of England. Since the great rebellion 
 in 1857, the military forces, of England have 
 not been employed except to compel the 
 barbarous people on her frontiers — the 
 Afghans and the Chitals — to keep the peace. 
 And the cause of this famous mutiny is now 
 
46 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 well known to have been due mainly to an 
 assumption on the part of the Sepoys, not 
 that they were politically oppressed, but that 
 they were obliged to grease their cartridges 
 with the fat of the accursed swine. 
 
 Another even more instructive illustration 
 of the treatment and policy of the Govern- 
 ment of England in respect to her subjects or 
 dependants, is to be found in the recent 
 experience of Egypt, Previous to the English 
 protectorate, consequent upon the suppression 
 of the rebellion under Arabi-Pasha in 1882, 
 the condition of the country was wretched 
 almost beyond conception. Its revenue system, 
 in accordance with Asiatic ideas, comprehen- 
 ded nearly every form of iniquitous extortion. 
 Under the rule of Ismail-Pasha (the Khedive 
 who built the Suez Canal with the enforced 
 and unpaid labor of his subjects), the revenue 
 annually collected from less than 6,000,000, 
 population was estimated at about ;^i6,ooo,ooo 
 ($80,000,000) ; while, apart from this sum, the 
 amount that was wrung from the miserable 
 peasantry, which never found its way into any 
 official ledger, was also very considerable. 
 The first thing an English finance committee 
 of experts effected, was to reduce the annual 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 47 
 
 taxation of $80,000,000 to $50,000,000, which, 
 apart from money terms, included a sum total 
 of vexatious and petty exactions that cannot 
 well be expressed in figures. The results of 
 a continuance of this policy by England has 
 been almost without precedent in the world's 
 fiscal history. 
 
 For the first time since the days of the 
 Roman administration, order and prosperity 
 reign in the valley of the Nile. 
 
 At no previous period since Egypt began to 
 have a name has the fellah lived under a gov- 
 ernment so careful to protect his rights. For 
 the first time he is allowed to control the fruits 
 of his labor. To-day, under British domina- 
 tion, every Egyptian peasant knows exactly 
 the amount of taxes he has to pay, and when 
 he has to pay them ; and that, when he has 
 once paid the legal amount, no official, big or 
 small, has the power to extort from him one 
 single piastre beyond it. He knows, too, that 
 he cannot at any moment be seized and 
 dragged off as formerly, perhaps to some dif- 
 ferent part of the country, to work under con- 
 stant dread of the whip, at any task suggested 
 by the caprice of the Khedive or of some 
 powerful pasha. The use of the lash, the for- 
 
48 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 mer invariable accompaniment of compulsory 
 and unpaid labor, is now also absolutely pro- 
 hibited. 
 
 When England first occupied the country 
 the four-per-cent Egyptian debt securities were 
 quoted at about 50, and not long before had 
 been rated as low as 27. To-day their quo- 
 tation is over 100, with a reduction of their 
 originally stipulated interest. 
 
 Under such circumstances Egypt has never, 
 certainly not within a recent period, enjoyed 
 so large a measure of prosperity. Notwith- 
 standing the recent universal decline in price 
 of agricultural staples, the Egyptian products 
 and exports of cotton, sugar, tobacco, wheat, 
 etc., have rapidly increased, and at present are 
 much greater than at any former period. The 
 annual Increase in the great staple product of 
 Egyptian agriculture — cotton — from the aver- 
 age of 1884-89 to that of 1893-94 was nearly 
 a hundred per cent., whereby the cultivator 
 was not only able to pay his taxes more easily, 
 but have more money left for his own needs. 
 
 Fifty years ago the accusations now pre- 
 ferred by Messrs. Cullom, Dickinson, Hawley, 
 Lodge, Chandler, Capen, and others, who as- 
 sume to be statesmen, wise legislators, and 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 49 
 
 instructors of the people, against England for 
 greed, "grab-all" and "monopoly" policies, 
 had undoubtedly some foundation. At that 
 time the whole commercial policy of England, 
 and of all other countries claiming to be in any 
 degree civilized, was based on the theory that 
 commerce could benefit one country only to 
 the extent that it injured another ; and that it 
 was the part of wisdom always to secure a 
 favorable balance of trade by selling as much 
 and buying as little as possible, and receiving 
 pay for what was sold, not in other useful pro- 
 ducts, but in gold. And this is the theory that 
 to-day characterizes the commerce and trade 
 policy of all nations — especially the United 
 States — except England. Forty odd years 
 ago England came to the conclusion that her 
 supremacy over the earth could best be at- 
 tained by supremacy in trade rather than by 
 supremacy of the sword, and that the exclu- 
 sive trade of any colony or people that has to 
 be fought for costs more than it is all worth. 
 And between 1845 and 1856 she inaugurated 
 this latter policy by substantially removing all 
 restrictions on the trade and commerce of Tier 
 own imrhediate people, i. e., of the United 
 Kingdom. And, what is generally over- 
 
50 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 looked, she gave also to the 300,000,000 of 
 other people over which her sovereignty ex- 
 tends the privilege of according or refusing 
 reciprocal action. In this respect England 
 stands alone. No other nation that has ever 
 existed, or now exists, has ever adopted a 
 similar policy. The following illustrations 
 exemplify it. 
 
 It is alleged that if the United States does 
 not speedily annex the Hawaiian Islands, Eng- 
 land or some other European power will grab 
 them. Let us see what certainly would happen 
 if the United States, or any of the great Euro- 
 pean powers, except England, should grab. 
 The first thing that they would do would be 
 to draw a line about the islands, restricting to 
 a great degree all commercial intercourse be- 
 tween them and other nations. If the policy ad- 
 vocated by Mr. McKinley were to prevail, com- 
 mercial restriction on the part of the United 
 States would amount almost to prohibition. 
 If France were to grab them, her commercial 
 regulations would probably be patterned after 
 the provisions for conquered Madagascar, 
 which make that great island an almost exclu- 
 sive French province, and absolutely prohibit 
 the importation of great staple articles from 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 5 1 
 
 any other country than France and her colonies. 
 The same prohibition tariff provisions have also 
 been made applicable to the French colonies 
 in Indo-China. The recent imposition by 
 France of adverse and discriminating duties 
 on shoes imported from the United States 
 would also probably be made operative in 
 Hawaii.' If Russia should obtain possession 
 of these islands, and establish her home policy 
 over them, none other than a Russian could 
 obtain a freehold title to any land. No im- 
 portations would be allowed that Russian pro- 
 
 ' England is the only country in Europe open to French produce 
 of all kinds without duty, save only in those cases where there are 
 countervailing excise duties in England itself. What, on the other 
 hand, is the situation of English merchandise which enters into 
 France ? All English manufactures, yarns, tissues, iron of all 
 kinds, machinery, implements, clothing, chemical products, in short, 
 everything that is manufactured, and even some raw materials, have 
 imposed upon them duties' which, in many cases, amount to fifty per 
 cent, ad ■valorem. 
 
 English ships are excluded from the French and American coast- 
 ing trade. The coasting trade of England is open to all French and 
 American ships, which pay, in English ports, no other local taxes 
 than those which are imposed at the same time upon English vessels. 
 
 The French Government and French producers say that since 
 France has made sacrifices to create colonies and protectorates, the 
 markets there ought to be reserved to the national industries. 
 
 England has also made sacrifices to found colonies, but she has 
 never proceeded to impose protective duties, and she opens these 
 countries with their nearly 300,000,000 of inhabitants to French 
 commerce, without exacting any other duties than those that are 
 paid by English merchandise. 
 
52 The United States and Great Britain, 
 
 ducers would like to supply ; no language 
 would be officially tolerated except Russian, 
 and no religion except that of the Greek 
 Church. The Government would be in the 
 highest degree despotic. If Spain grabbed, 
 we know what her policy would be from the 
 experience of Cuba. On the other hand, if 
 the island should pass under the sovereignty 
 of England, restrictions on trade and com- 
 merce, foreign and domestic, would be reduced 
 to a minimum ; popular government, in which 
 all nationalities would participate, would be 
 established, with English common law as its 
 basis ; the rights of the natives, as well as of 
 all other citizens, would be guarded ; and, 
 above all, a national sanitary system, copied 
 from that of India, the best in the world, 
 and admirably adapted to the fifteen differ- 
 ent races which recent anthropological investi- 
 gations have shown are now being propagated 
 in the islands, would be speedily introduced. 
 
 The annals of history will be searched in 
 vain to find better and more instructive object 
 lessons, touching the influence of governments, 
 for better or worse, on the people governed, 
 than are afforded by the experience and pres- 
 ent condition of three of the most naturally 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 53 
 
 attractive areas, for industrial development 
 and individual prosperity, on the earth's sur- 
 face, namely : the three great West India 
 Islands, of Hayti, Cuba, and Jamaica. Of 
 the first, the Government, although nomi- 
 nally a Republic, is practically a despotism of 
 the Asiatic type. Its other leading character- 
 istics are : a primitive system of agriculture ; 
 an absence of good roads, and no railroads ; 
 a ferocious antagonism of races — i, e., blacks 
 and mulattoes ; a constitution that prohibits 
 the white races from holding real estate ; and a 
 social system that also renders it unsafe for a 
 white man to travel in the country. At a not 
 very remote period the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church of the United States sent one of its 
 most respected bishops to Hayti, to consecrate 
 a church and install a suitable minister to con- 
 duct its services. The American bishop on 
 his return stated, that on the very day on 
 which he fulfilled the object of his mission, 
 and at but a comparatively short distance 
 removed {i.e., by an intervening mountain 
 ridge of low elevation), there was a reported 
 celebration of "voudoo," or demon-worship, 
 accompanied by human sacrifice. 
 
 With the desolation and prospective tern- 
 
54 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 porary ruin of the island of Cuba, sometimes 
 called " The Pearl of the Antilles," undeniably 
 the result of bad government, all are familiar. 
 In Jamaica, the third of this group of West 
 India Islands, whose natural conditions are 
 almost identical with those of Hayti, and 
 whose population, as in Hayti, is mainly 
 colored — 610,579 negroes and mulattoes and 
 14,692 whites in 1891, — the situation under 
 England's supervision is entirely different. 
 Peace and order prevail ; property is secure ; 
 the average death-rate low ; taxes on cultivated 
 land, six cents per acre ; education of the 
 masses carefully provided; facilities for in- 
 land communication and ready access to the 
 markets of the world established ; and pros- 
 pective advantages for the investment of 
 capital, exceedingly prorhising to American 
 investors. In view of such an exhibit can any 
 intelligent citizen of the United States doubt 
 as to which of the three systems of govern- 
 ment involved it is his interest to promote ? 
 
 The bearing also of the commercial policy 
 of England upon the Venezuelan question, 
 which thus far has hardly attracted the atten- 
 tion of the people of the United States, is 
 really the only point involved that materially 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 5 5 
 
 affects their interest, and as such is more 
 worthy of their serious consideration than any 
 other. As is well known, there have been 
 repeated attempts to settle the difificulties 
 between England and Venezuela by arbitra- 
 tion, and all of them have thus far resulted 
 in failure. For what reason ? Obviously 
 not from disagreement about the partition of 
 sovereignty over a tract of tropical wilderness, 
 in which no white man would ever care to 
 permanently live, and which there is no proba- 
 bility that Venezuela, with its sparse and 
 mongrel population, would ever attempt to 
 colonize, or properly and peacefully govern. 
 Apart from certain minor considerations, the 
 real reason of disagreement has been that 
 England wants free navigation of the Orinoco, 
 and Venezuela does not. Any doubt on this 
 point ought to be at once removed by refer- 
 ence to an official letter, addressed under date 
 of February 17, 1890, by Senor Paraza, then 
 Venezuelan Minister at Washington, to Mr. 
 Blaine, the then United States Secretary of 
 State, in which he says : If Great Britain 
 is allowed to control the Orinoco " her vessels 
 would enter the mouth of that river, and would 
 carry to the great centres of population her 
 
56 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 productions, her ideas, and her exclusive inter- 
 est" ; and to prevent such a result, which, 
 according to Sefior Y2X2lZ2,, "would render 
 nugatory the efforts that are now being made 
 by the nations of America to draw closer their 
 family bonds and have one and the same 
 destiny," he, therefore, begs Mr. Blaine to 
 request Great Britain to settle her differences 
 with Venezuela. 
 
 That, in case of the control of the Orinoco 
 by Great Britain her vessels would enter the 
 mouth of that river, and carry her productions, 
 her ideas, and her interests, cannot be doubted. 
 But Great Britain has never sought any ex- 
 clusive control of the Orinoco. She has only 
 sought to have it made free to the commerce 
 of all nations ; and if she were to obtain con- 
 trol, she would not claim or exercise any ex- 
 clusive privileges over that river, any more 
 than she claims and exercises exclusive privi- 
 leges over the St. Lawrence, the Nile, the 
 Ganges, the Indus, or the Irrawaddy, all of 
 which she territorially controls ; or would over 
 the Yukon, if the adjustment of territorial 
 lines in Alaska should show the mouth of that 
 river to be within English jurisdiction. 
 
 On the other hand, the letter of Sefior 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 5 7 
 
 Paraza warrants the assumption that Vene- 
 zuela does not want the Orinoco to be free, 
 but exclusive to herself for the purpose of 
 gain through some form of money exaction on 
 the commerce that desires to use it, and has 
 the expectation that this privilege of exclusive 
 control will at no distant day be accorded to 
 her, mainly through the agency of the United 
 States. In 1866, when she announced her in- 
 tention of erecting a lighthouse on Point 
 Barima, at the mouth of the Orinoco, the 
 British Government agreed to consent on con- 
 dition that this measure should not be con- 
 sidered as prejudicing any claim on its part to 
 any territory thus occupied which was in dis- 
 pute. The Venezuelan Government, however, 
 rejected the proposition, and the lighthouse 
 in consequence has never been built ; thus 
 showing that the motive of Venezuela in pro- 
 posing to build a lighthouse was not with a 
 view of compassing the object for which such 
 structures are erected, namely, to benefit 
 commerce and insure safe navigation, but 
 rather to fortify their claims to an exclusive 
 control of the river for their own advantage. 
 In futherance of this purpose she has also 
 chartered a purely speculative company — an 
 
5 8 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 American syndicate — looking to a monopoly 
 of the fiver and its adjacent territory, and of 
 which the President of the country is reported 
 as one of the largest stockholders. This 
 charter involved a grant of 14,400,000 acres, 
 or 23,000 square miles — a territory about as 
 large as New England, — and, according to a 
 statement made in November, 1895, by the 
 secretary of General Blanco, late President of 
 Venezuela, to the New York Sun, and pub- 
 lished in its columns, "was in its inception a 
 deliberate purpose of Gen. Blanco's to enlist 
 more warmly the United States in Venezuela's 
 behalf by establishing in American citizens the 
 title to a large part of the territory claimed by 
 England." 
 
 The real and- only issue of importance in 
 this problem of Venezuela to the people of the 
 United States is, will they co-operate with the 
 British Government in securing to all nations 
 the perpetual right to the free commercial use 
 of this mighty river, which constitutes the only 
 available access to the great northern interior 
 of South America ; or allow its control to pass 
 to a Government which is one of the most un- 
 stable of all countries, whose commerce is 
 little more than barter, which has no banking 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 59 
 
 system, and whose history is one monotonous 
 record of revolutions accomplished through 
 bloodshed, and a remarkable ferocity on the 
 part of all antagonizing political parties. 
 Peace, extended commercial relations, and 
 consequent enlargement of markets for do- 
 mestic industrial products are certainly not 
 likely to be assured to the people of the 
 United States by any endorsement on the 
 part of their Government of the latter policy. 
 It is the old contest again between barbar- 
 ism arid civilization ; with a marked tendency 
 on the part of the United States to favor bar- 
 barism and its most certain concomitant of 
 war.* 
 
 ' "I have visited many British colonies in various parts of the 
 world, and I have had occasion to compare them with near-by Latin- 
 American republics, the successors of three hundred years of Spanish 
 rule, and I can endorse all that Mr. Wells has to say. In 1892, 
 while in command of the United States steamship Kearsarge, I 
 ascended the identical river, the Orinoco, which Mr. Wells would 
 see thrown open to navigation, — going as far as Ciudad-Bolivar (for- 
 merly Angostura), 240 miles above its mouth, — and I do not hesitate 
 to state that if that great waterway were located in a British posses- 
 sion, its shores, instead of being as they now are for the greater part 
 of the way a howling wilderness, would be lined with prosperous 
 settlements, and the waters of that mighty stream would be carrying 
 ii hundred tons of shipping where they now carry one ; that those 
 great civilizers, trade and commerce, and agriculture, backed by law 
 and order, would bring about in the adjacent territory a state of 
 affairs that has never yet entered the head of the average Latin- 
 
6o The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 In conclusion, the general result of England's 
 governmental and commercial policy may be 
 thus fairly and comprehensively stated. 
 
 Wherever her sovereignty has gone, two 
 blades of grass have grown where one grew 
 before. Her flag, wherever it has been ad- 
 vanced, has benefited the country over which 
 it floats ; and has carried with it civilization, 
 the Christian religion, order, justice, and 
 prosperity. 
 
 England is the only one of the great 
 countries of the world in which crime is dimin- 
 ishing. Recent reports of the British Prison 
 Commissioners for England and Wales show 
 a remarkable decrease in the prison popula- 
 tion. In fact England has been found to have 
 too many prisons, and a not inconsiderable 
 nymber have been closed during the last ten 
 years because they were no longer needed. 
 The actual decline in the number of inmates 
 in the local prisons of England and Wales 
 from 1877 to 1892 — a period of fifteen years — 
 
 American politician. If England has grabbed territory, she has 
 grabbed it to some purpose, and no people or race, be they civilized 
 or savage, has come under her rule but has been raised in the social 
 scale, benefited and made free, where formerly they were degraded, 
 if notin an actual state of savagery or slavery. " — Capt, A. S. Crownin- 
 shield, U, S. N., North Ainerican Review, May, iSg6. 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 6 r 
 
 was thirty-seven per cent. ; and this relative 
 decline would have been much greater if the 
 increase of the general population in the same 
 period had been taken into the account. 
 
 England has always treated a conquered 
 race with justice. What under her rule is the 
 law for the white man is the law for his black, 
 red, and yellow brother. And here we have 
 one explanation of the fact that England alone 
 of the nations has been successful in establish- 
 ing and maintaining colonies ; and of the fur- 
 ther extraordinary fact, with an accompanying 
 impressiveness of thought, that a comparatively 
 small insular country, containing less than 
 40,000,000 inhabitan-ts, can successfully preside 
 over the destinies of about 360,000,000 other 
 members of the human race, and exercise a 
 governing influence greater and vastly more 
 beneficent than that of Rome in the zenith 
 of her power. 
 
 What an endorsement of the honesty of 
 England and its people is involved in the re- 
 ported and probable fact, that the Church of 
 Rome makes that non-Catholic country and its 
 much-abused bankers its fiduciary guardian of 
 the fiscal resources necessary for the mainte- 
 nance of its vast missionary enterprises and 
 
62 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 other religious objects, and which experience 
 has shown cannot be intrusted with an equal 
 degree of confidence to any other country. 
 There is authority for the statement that, 
 within a comparatively recent period, every 
 religious order of the Catholic Church in 
 France has transferred all its available means 
 to English banks, and that letters of adminis- 
 tration or probate have been taken out in 
 London by their representatives. And a 
 similar action and belief on the partiof other 
 foreign purse-holders accounts undoubtedly in 
 a large degree for the low rate of interest on 
 money capital in England (British 2\ per cent. 
 Consols selling at 112^ in April, 1896), and 
 the great demand for her national securities. 
 
 A recent incident, illustrative of how Eng- 
 land, in entering upon the occupation of bar- 
 barous countries, does not content herself with 
 merely amelioratory present or immediate con- 
 ditions, but looks forward to future industrial 
 developments, is found in the fact that one of 
 the earliest acts of its administration in Cen- 
 tral Africa, was to declare a considerable area 
 of country. Crown property, for the purpose of 
 preventing the rapid and complete extinction 
 by fire, or otherwise, of the remains of a mag- 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 63 
 
 nificent forest of a rare and extremely valuable 
 species of cedar, which it was the common in- 
 tent of the world should not be merely pre- 
 served, but rather extended locally and by 
 propagation in other countries. Contrast 
 this policy and action of England with the 
 absence of all similar policy and action on the 
 part of the Federal and State Governments 
 of the United States, whereby the famous red- 
 wood forests — the wonder and beauty of Cali- 
 fornia — are rapidly disappearing ; and that the 
 time is not far distant when the Sierra Moun- 
 tains will be swept bare of them, and the 
 country "wake up to the realization of the 
 vandalism that has robbed it of one of its 
 great scenic charms," and of a species of wood 
 that has no rival for certain architectural uses. 
 While the people of the United States are 
 experiencing the humiliation of seeing the flag 
 of their mercantile marine vanishing from the 
 ocean, it may not be unprofitable for them to 
 learn what England has recently been doing 
 for the preservation and welfare of her mer- 
 chant vessels and seamen. In virtue of what 
 has been termed load-line legislation, adopted 
 by the United Kingdom about 1881, no ship 
 can leave a British port overladen ; and the 
 
64 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 owners of British ships coming in overladen, 
 as determined by certain fixed rules, are sub- 
 ject to prosecution. The effect of this en- 
 actment, accompanied by certain regulations 
 respecting deck-loading and the stowage of 
 grain cargoes, has been truly remarkable. 
 Thus, in 1881, when the legislation referred 
 to began to operate, the annual loss of life in 
 the British mercantile marine was one in 57. 
 In 1883 it had fallen to one in 66, in 1885 to 
 one in 96, and in 1891 to one in 115. The 
 loss of life in the ten years indicated had 
 therefore fallen by one-half. The number of 
 lives lost in, 1881 was 2352. In 1892 the 
 number had fallen to 107 1. In respect to the 
 effect of the regulations for the stowage of 
 grain, it has been demonstrated that in the 
 three years from 1875 to 1877, 60 vessels with 
 grain cargoes foundered, and 586 lives were 
 lost. In the three years from 1890 to 1892, 
 the number of grain vessels lost was reduced 
 to 13, and the number of lives lost to 230, a 
 very large reduction. In the same way, in 
 respect to the deck-loading of timber ships, 
 the number of lives lost in the three years 
 from 1875 to 1877, was 135, whereas in the 
 three years from 1890 to 1892, the number was 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 65 
 
 only 44. Very naturally, seafaring men incline 
 to serve in the British mercantile marine rather 
 than in that of any other nation. The repre- 
 sentatives of the American people in Congress 
 assembled do not seem to have cared for any 
 such things, but have recently rejoiced greatly 
 in the expenditure of large sums of money, 
 raised by taxation, for the construction of a 
 type of vessels which, by reason of their 
 special adaptations, have been termed " com- 
 merce destroyers." 
 
 Again, under the policy which England has 
 established for the working of her mines, and 
 which no other government has fully adopted, 
 the occupation of the British miner has been 
 rendered twice as safe as it was at the com- 
 mencement of her mining enactments. 
 
 But here some may ask : How about the 
 wrongs and abuses of Ireland and her people 
 on the part of England ? The answer is, that 
 they originated in an old-time theory, once 
 accepted and practised by all nations, that 
 might makes right, and that differences in 
 religious belief warrant individual persecution 
 and a debarment from all participation in gov- 
 ernment, and it is this policy that has, from a 
 lengthened period, entailed a condition of 
 
66 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 affairs in Ireland that has not been easy to 
 remedy. But England now leads the way 
 among the nations in the utter repudiation of 
 this policy, and the day cannot be far distant 
 when the grievances of Ireland will be amicably 
 and satisfactorily settled by her. That real 
 progress has also been made in this direction 
 is proved by the fact, that the present Lord 
 Chief Justice of England (Lord Russell of 
 Killowen) is a Catholic Irishman ; and that 
 no subject of England in Ireland, or in any 
 other country under English sovereignty, is 
 now debarred from participating in her gov- 
 ernment by reason of his religious belief ; 
 which is more than can be affirmed of the 
 condition of affairs in some other countries 
 claiming to be free, christianized, and civil- 
 ized. 
 
 England, furthermore, no longer maintains, 
 as formerly, an established church in Ireland. 
 Forty years ago a young Catholic Irishman, 
 by reason of the religion in which he was born 
 and bred, was denied admission as an under- 
 graduate to the most liberal of England's 
 great universities — Cambridge. To-day, with- 
 out swerving in any degree from his former 
 religious belief, he fills, as Lord Acton, one of 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 67 
 
 its most important professorships — that of 
 Modern History ; and his appointment has 
 been received with universal satisfaction. 
 "Could there be a more signal token of the 
 passing away in England of that old sectarian 
 spirit, which formerly found expression in re- 
 ligious tests; and of the present nationaliza- 
 tion of her great seats of learning ! " 
 
 If the Englishman is unbending and de- 
 termined to have his way, such characteristics 
 are due to the Anglo-Saxon element in him ; 
 and which as participated in by the people of 
 the United States has been the main cause of 
 their development and prosperity as a nation. 
 
 The reason why England is hated by other 
 nations is because she is feared, and she is 
 feared mainly by reason of the success of her 
 commercial policy, which has not only brought 
 her wealth, but strength. She is envied, too, 
 by unsuccessful rivals in common industrial 
 fields. But the United States as a nation is 
 hated and distrusted in an equal degree. There 
 is not a Government on the American conti- 
 nent, except Canada and Venezuela, that does 
 not both fear and hate her ; and if the United 
 States decides in favor of the free navigation 
 of the Orinoco, the latter will speedily be ac- 
 
68 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 counted among her most bitter enemies. All 
 countries save England, and possibly Russia 
 and Japan, would rejoice at the dissolution of 
 the Federal Union.* 
 
 The United States now stands at the parting 
 of the ways. Shall she by antagonism with 
 England bring about for herself a national 
 isolation, with the inevitable result of dwarfing 
 the intellectual and industrial energies of her 
 people ; or, by strengthening the bonds of 
 peace and friendship with England, unite the 
 two foremost and most progressive nations of 
 the world for the joint attainment of those 
 results that constitute national greatness ? 
 Through what may be termed natural influ- 
 ences, the bonds of interest between the 
 United States and England are already im- 
 measurably greater than with any other coun- 
 try. England buys from us just about as 
 much as all the rest of the world ; and all the 
 other countries of the world do not afford, 
 and could not afford, us such a market as she 
 
 ^ A recent issue of the leading newspaper in the Argentine Repub- 
 lic — the Buenos Ayres Herald — affirms, that the Argentine people 
 ' ' are of a different race, of different language, customs, and interests, 
 having no sympathy with American thought or commerce, and having 
 neither affection nor any special friendship for Americans," and the 
 sentiments of the people of Brazil, as indicated by the newspapers of 
 that country, are in full agreement with those of the Argentines. 
 
The United Slates and Great Britain. 69 
 
 does for our agricultural products, which must 
 long remain the principal things we have to 
 sell abroad. The five million people of the 
 Dominion of Canada buy from the United 
 States a much greater quantity of her goods 
 and merchandise ($47,787,501 in 1895) than 
 all of the thirty-six million occupying the 
 continent of South America ($33,248,331 in 
 1895). If England had not in a great measure 
 abandoned agriculture, and turned to the 
 United States for her supply of food, who 
 could say what would have been the present 
 economic condition of our people at the West 
 and South, or of the people at our manufac- 
 turing and financial centres of the North and 
 East, who are dependent upon the prosperity 
 of the West and South. In short, the existing 
 ties of race, language, law, and religion, that 
 bind the two nations together, are so strong, 
 that together they must rise or fall. United, 
 as it would seem to be God's purpose that they 
 should be, there would be little need for either 
 to maintain large armies or navies, for without 
 them they could for all reasonable purposes 
 rule the world, and be impregnable against as- 
 sault. If it were also certain, as it probably is, 
 that England' would continue her present com- 
 
70 The United States and Great Britain, 
 
 mercial policy, it would be for the true inter- 
 ests of the United States that she " should 
 further extend her sovereignty over the surface 
 of the earth ; for then the people of the United 
 States would have the privilege and profit of 
 unrestricted trade with all the subjects of Eng- 
 land without the expense of governing them. 
 
 Some years since in a' social conversation 
 with one of the ablest men that England ever 
 sent to represent her diplomatically at Wash- 
 ington, the question was put to him, " Do you 
 think that war between the United States and 
 England is ever again likely to occur ? " The 
 immediate answer was : " Considering the 
 many ties and common interests that unite 
 the two nations, such an occurrence does not 
 seem possible." Then, hesitating for a mo- 
 ment, he, continued : " But when I consider 
 the resources, energy, and skill of your people, 
 the thought sometimes occurs to me, that if 
 the United States were to adopt the commer- 
 cial policy of England she might so crowd us 
 out of the markets of the world, on which my 
 countrymen so largely depend for industrial 
 employment and support, that England might 
 have to fight for her existence." 
 
 If, now, this adventitious supposition on the 
 
The United States and Great Britain. 71 
 
 part of this wise English diplomat is warranted, 
 it would seem to be wisdom on the part of 
 such of the people of the United States as 
 hate England and desire to humiliate her, to 
 adopt as soon as possible her commercial 
 policy. 
 
 It is not pretended, as some have inferred 
 (London Chronicle^ from a perusal of the 
 above article, as it was originally published in 
 the North American Review, that the com- 
 mercial or colonial policy of England has 
 been primarily designed for the benefit of 
 rival nations, or mankind in general. Any as- 
 sumption that such an idea was either enter- 
 tained, or expressed by the author has no 
 warrant. England is pre-eminently a selfish 
 nation, in the same sense as the govern- 
 ments of all other countries and people are, 
 or ought to be, — namely, in preferring and 
 fostering the interests and prosperity of their 
 own people, before any or all others. But 
 there are two kinds of selfishness : one, of the 
 old mediaeval type, which holds that whatever 
 gain may accrue to any one in trade must 
 necessarily be accompanied by a correspond- 
 ing loss on the part of some other person or 
 
72 The United States and Great Britain. 
 
 party ; and that accordingly in international 
 trade or exchanges it is for the interest of one 
 nation to impair as far as possible the trade 
 and prosperity of its commercial competitors. 
 The other kind of selfishness — which may be 
 termed enlightened selfishness — holds that 
 the parties participating in legitimate trade 
 are mutually benefited. The local retail mer- 
 chants — " the grocer, the baker, and the 
 candlestick-maker " — perfectly understand 
 and appreciate this latter principle. No one 
 of them desires that his customers shall not be 
 prosperous, for he knows that, if they are not, 
 his sales will be contracted, and his collection 
 of indebtedness will be difficult. Nations, 
 however, have been very slow in recognizing 
 and profiting by this experience. In fact, 
 England is the only nation that has done so, 
 and herein is the secret of her wealth and 
 commercial supremacy ; and her enlightened 
 selfishness will undoubtedly prompt her to 
 continue this policy. 
 
THE MONROE DOCTRINE 
 
 AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE 
 OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
 
 March 30^ 1896 
 
 By Edward J. Phelps 
 
 73 
 
THE MONROE DOCTRINE.' 
 
 I HAVE been asked to address you this 
 evening on the subject of the " Monroe 
 doctrine." This phrase, heard by many Ameri- 
 cans for the first time, and conveying to 
 most minds a very indefinite idea, has been 
 brought before the country with striking effect 
 within the last three or four months. It has 
 drawn us dangerously near to a war with Great 
 Britain, and nearer perhaps to a war with Spain. 
 It has caused a paralysis upon business and a 
 loss of property in the depreciation of securi- 
 ties that no arithmetic can estimate. For what 
 cause ? Upon what provocation ? With the 
 countries concerned we are perfectly friendly ; 
 we have received no injury from them and 
 have none to fear ; with their people we 
 have no quarrel. With one of them we are 
 more closely allied by every tie that can pos- 
 sibly exist between nations, than any indepen- 
 -dent countries ever were in the history of the 
 world. Suddenly, without warning or pre- 
 
 75 
 
76 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 monition, this condition of affairs and its 
 happy presage for the future were threatened 
 with violent disturbance. Twenty-four hours 
 before the announcement, not a man in either 
 country, outside of the American Executive 
 Chamber, could have dreamed of such a rup- 
 ture, on any score then existing, or capable of 
 being anticipated. But by a message of the 
 President to Congress it was made known to us 
 that an ancient boundary-line controversy of 
 small importance, between Great Britain and 
 Venezuela, which had been dragging along 
 without conclusion or much attempt at it for 
 the best part of the present century, had been 
 taken in hand by the United States Govern- 
 ment ; that its proposal to the British Govern- 
 ment that an arbitration should take place 
 between that country and Venezuela to deter- 
 mine the question, had been assented to in 
 part, but in part declined for special reasons, 
 courteously stated ; and that thereupon, with- 
 out further discussion, the President had de- 
 cided to ascertain the line by an ex parte 
 commission of his own appointment, and to 
 compel Great Britain to accept the result. It 
 was not pointed out, nor was it true, that the 
 United States had the slightest interest, pres- 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. "jy 
 
 ent or future, in the settlement of the ques- 
 tion, or any special alliance or connection 
 with Venezuela. Nor was it claimed (if that 
 could have made any difference) that Great 
 Britain had taken a step or uttered a word 
 which showed a disposition to encroach upon 
 the rights of Venezuela, or to bring any force 
 to bear upon her in the adjustment of the dis- 
 pute. Neither was it made to appear, even, 
 that she waS in the wrong in her contention 
 as to the true location of the line, since that 
 question was admitted to be involved in such 
 obscurity that a learned commission of jurists 
 and scholars was necessary to discover by 
 laborious investigation whether she was right 
 or not, and if not, wherein she was wrong, an 
 inquiry upon which, after several months' labor, 
 they are still at work. It was simply assumed, 
 that because the boundary in dispute was on 
 this hemisphere, the United States had the 
 right to dictate arbitration between the parties 
 as the proper method of ascertaining its loca- 
 tion, and if that was refused, to define the 
 line for herself, and to enforce its adoption. 
 This extraordinary conclusion was asserted for 
 the first time against a friendly nation, not as 
 a proposition open to discussion, to which its 
 
78 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 attention and reply were invited, but as an ulti- 
 matum announced to" begin with. And it was 
 addressed, not to that nation itself, through the 
 ordinary channels of diplomatic intercourse, 
 but to a coordinate branch of our own Govern- 
 ment, and thence through the newspapers to 
 the world at large. Coming from the President 
 of the United States, in a state paper of the 
 highest importance, and from a President who 
 has hitherto commanded in an unusual degree 
 the public confidence, this conclusion may be 
 usefully considered, since it applies not only to 
 the case which gave rise to it, but to the other 
 and similar cases which in the shifting con- 
 dition of South American affairs are likely fre- 
 quently to confront us in the future. 
 
 The general rule of international law which 
 precludes intervention by a nation in the 
 disputes of other nations with which it is at 
 peace, and with neither of which it has any 
 treaty of defensive alliance, is universally con- 
 ceded, and stands upon the most obvious 
 grounds of necessity. Without it the peace 
 of the world would be constantly in danger. 
 When such a dispute has culminated in hos- 
 tilities, the intervention of a third power against 
 either party is an act of war. To this rule 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 79 
 
 there are but two exceptions. Where the 
 interference is for the purpose of repressing 
 gross outrages against humanity, like massacre 
 or intolerable cruelty, such as are reported to 
 have taken place in Armenia, or where the 
 nation 'interposing is compelled to do so for its 
 own protection, in order to prevent a disposi- 
 tion of territory seriously injurious to its per- 
 manent interests, or which would constitute a 
 grave menace to them in the future. In this 
 case, as has been already remarked, the United 
 States has no such apprehension. No advo- 
 cate of the President's proclamation has under- 
 taken to point out how it can affect us, 
 whether the line through the jungle of bushes 
 and water, which makes up most of the terri- 
 tory really in dispute, is drawn a few miles one 
 way or the other. And if we could conceive 
 that we have any possible interest in the 
 question, it would be on the side of Great 
 Britain. So far as that region is capable of 
 civilized occupation, it would be better for us 
 and for the rest of the world that it should be 
 under British jurisdiction, than in the hands of 
 a weak and unstable government, which is lit- 
 tle more than a succession of spasmodic and 
 ill-regulated republics diversified by revolu- 
 
8o The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 tion. Great Britain has no port on any sea 
 that is not wide open to us without restriction 
 for every purpose of commerce, intercourse, or 
 residence ; nor any country under her flag 
 where the rights of all Americans who may 
 find their way there upon whatever errand, are 
 not as completely protected as those of Eng- 
 lishmen. We load her exports to us with 
 heavy duties, but she imposes none upon ours 
 in return. On the other hand, United States 
 interests in South American countries have 
 been frequently subject to embarrassment and 
 injustice, requiring the interposition of our 
 Government. That we are not claimed to 
 have any concern in the location of the dis- 
 puted boundary, is conclusively shown by the 
 willingness of the Administration to have it 
 settled by an arbitration which we have no 
 hand in appointing, to which we are not a 
 party, before which we are not heard, and 
 which is charged with no consideration of any 
 rights of ours. We profess, in short, no other 
 interest in the matter than that it should be 
 determined one way or the other, whether right 
 or wrong, by arbitration; Such being the con- 
 ditions of the case, and they are not open to 
 dispute,, upon what theory is the position of 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 8 1 
 
 the United States sought to be justified ? 
 The answer offered to an astonished world is, 
 that it is the necessary result of the Monroe 
 doctrine, and is to be charged to that account. 
 Now a proposition that entails such conse- 
 quences ought to be pretty carefully examined. 
 It behooves us to ascertain what it stands for, 
 what it means, how far it is sound, how far it is 
 going, and what are its limits if it has any. 
 
 What then is the " Monroe doctrine ? " The 
 phrase is of frequent use lately, but of very in- 
 frequent attempts at definition. Expressing 
 nothing, it may be understood to express any- 
 thing. It is generally supposed to embody a 
 vague idea of some sort of control that may be 
 or ought to be exerted by the United States 
 over the relations between European govern- 
 ments and those of South America. But what 
 control, under what right, for what purposes, 
 and in what cases, we are not informed. The 
 name by which such principle as it is thought to 
 stand for is called, would be immaterial, if it 
 were not that a name often gives currency to 
 an idea that can only exist under an indefinable 
 phrase, because as soon as it is stated in plain 
 language it refutes itself. It is the constant 
 and necessary resort of those who undertake 
 
82 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 to maintain an unmaintainable proposition, to 
 find a phraseology that will be accepted as con- 
 veying its meaning, without exposing its fu- 
 tility. When such terms are correctly defined, 
 their contents disappear. The uncertainty of 
 what is meant by the Monroe doctrine is 
 made apparent by the efforts of recent writers 
 and orators to define it, for no two of them 
 agree. Some have gone so far that the 
 ground taken by the President has become 
 moderate in comparison. One asserts that 
 it is the right in our Government to forbid 
 any dispute as to a boundary line or other 
 question between a European and a South 
 American 'government, however immaterial to 
 us, to be settled in any way by the parties to 
 it, without our consent. Another still more 
 advanced writer defines it to be our right, and 
 corresponding duty, to require that every dif- 
 ference that arises between a European na- 
 tion and one in South America, shall be adjusted 
 by arbitration ; a species of voluntary agree- 
 ment that he conceives we have a divine mis- 
 sron to compel other governments to accept 
 against their will, in matters with which we 
 have no concern. Various other novel incur- 
 sions into the field of international law find 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 83 
 
 their only defence against absurdity, under the 
 convenient shelter of the phrase " the Monroe 
 doctrine," which is assumed to be a feature 
 of the American theory of government, in- 
 herited by some strange canon of descent from 
 President Monroe, its inventor, and which we 
 are all bound to support whether we under- 
 stand it or not. And when finally we resort 
 to the diplomatic communications from our 
 Government to that of Great Britain, in order 
 to ascertain if possible what is the precise right 
 we claim in the present case, and why we 
 claim it, we find the answer to those reason- 
 able inquiries to be farther off than ever. 
 
 The pretext for annexing the name of Mr. 
 Monroe to these extravagant proposals is 
 found in some language employed in his mes- 
 sage to Congress in the year 1823. He said : 
 "The occasion has been judged proper for 
 asserting a principle in which the rights and 
 interests of the United States are involved, 
 that the American continents, by the free and 
 independent condition which they have as- 
 sumed and maintained, are henceforth not to 
 be considered as subjects for future coloniza- 
 tion by any European power." Later in the 
 same message he said : " We owe it therefore 
 
84 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 to candor, and to the amicable relations exist- 
 ing between the United States and those " 
 (Allied) " powers, to declare that we should 
 consider any attempt on their part to extend 
 their system to any portion of this hemisphere 
 as dangerous to our peace and safety." And 
 again : " We could not view any interposition 
 for the purpose of oppressing them " [the inde- 
 pendent South American countries], " or con- 
 trolling in any other manner their destiny by 
 any European power, in any other light than as 
 the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition 
 toward- the United States." This is what Mr. 
 Monroe said, and substantially all that he said 
 on the subject. The occasion which called 
 forth this language, and the matter it referred 
 to, was an intention shown by certain Euro- 
 pean nations combined under what was called 
 the Holy Alliance, to aid Spain in regaining 
 her lost authority over eight provinces in 
 South America, which had achieved their in- 
 dependence and established republican insti- 
 tutions. This was in the infancy of our own 
 Republic, when that form of government was 
 almost unknown, and was still an untried 
 experiment. It might well be contended, that 
 to re-establish a European monarchy by force 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 85 
 
 over so large a portion of South America, 
 against the will of its people, would have 
 been at that time a serious menace to our 
 political system, against which, on well settled 
 principles, we were justified in protecting our- 
 selves. And this position was heartily con- 
 curred in by Great Britain. In respect to the 
 right of colonization on this hemisphere by 
 European countries, more doubt might arise 
 as to the soundness of President Monroe's 
 proposition. It has been opposed by emi- 
 nent statesmen and writers, and rejected by 
 Congress in former days. Unless there was 
 something in the locality of the proposed 
 colonization that made it a menace to us, it 
 might be difficult to sustain the objection to it. 
 But that point need not here be discussed, 
 since it is altogether foreign to the present 
 subject, nor is it at all likely at this day that 
 the question will ever recur. 
 
 It will be seen, therefore, that President 
 Monroe never asserted, nor did the case he was 
 dealing with call for the assertion of any right 
 in this Government that supports or even ap- 
 proaches the proposition now brought forward 
 under the professed sanction of his name. 
 What he did say related to an entirely differ- 
 
86 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 ent state of facts from those now before us, 
 and referred to a principle long fundamental in 
 international law and universally admitted, of 
 which he was in no sense the author ; the right 
 of national self-preservation and defence in 
 every case and under all circumstances that 
 call for its exercise. That is not only the 
 right, but the first and paramount duty of 
 every independent nation. And it applies as 
 fully to the acquisition of territory by another 
 power, when it seriously endangers the safety 
 or the important interests of a country, as to 
 any other aggression. If this unquestionable 
 right is what is meant by the term " Monroe 
 doctrine," the phrase is capable of being clearly 
 understood and accurately defined, and it will 
 encounter no denial in any quarter. Such is the 
 view of Mr. Monroe's propositions taken by 
 Mr. Webster in his celebrated speech on the 
 Panama mission, in which he warmly defended 
 the message, which had been earnestly attacked. 
 He said : " The general rule of national law is 
 unquestionably against interference in the 
 transactions of other states. There are, how- 
 ever, acknowledged exceptions growing out 
 of circumstances, and founded in those cir- 
 cumstances. . . . The ground of these 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 87 
 
 exceptions is, as I have already stated, self- 
 preservation. It is not a slight injury to our 
 interests, it is not even a great inconvenience, 
 that makes out a case. There must be danger 
 to our security, or danger, manifest and immi- 
 nent danger, to our essential rights and our 
 essential interests. . . . Our right to in- 
 terfere in any such case is but the exercise of 
 the right of reasonable and necessary self-de- 
 fence. It is a high and delicate exercise of 
 that right ; one not to be made but on grounds 
 of strong and manifest reason, justice, and 
 necessity." 
 
 The limits of this occasion do not admit of 
 sustaining Mr. Webster's views by adducing 
 those of other statesmen and writers to the same 
 effect. Nor is it necessary. The propriety of 
 the proposition he has so lucidly stated is al- 
 most self-evident, and has never been denied 
 by any recognized authority. Nor can there 
 be a higher or more truly American authority 
 than his on any question of international right 
 on which he ever had occasion to express 
 himself. 
 
 The application of the right of national self- 
 defence to the injurious acquisition by other 
 nations of new territory, finds its chief illustra- 
 
88 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 tion in what is called in Europe the balance of 
 power. The right of interference in such cases 
 by the country thus menaced, has long been 
 established. But to justify it, the necessity for 
 it must first clearly appear. It is not in ordi- 
 nary cases, nor at the mere will or caprice of the 
 nation intervening, nor upon any theory of a 
 constructive, a possible, or an unimportant in- 
 jury, that it has been permitted by that general 
 concurrence of mankind which constitutes in- 
 ternational law. When at the conclusion of 
 the war between Germany and France the for- 
 mer annexed to itself the provinces of Alsace 
 and Lorraine, no other country could have 
 justified an interference to prevent it, since it 
 wrought no other country any injury. But had 
 Germany undertaken to annex France by con- 
 quest, the right of European nations to protest, 
 by force of arms, if necessary, would not have 
 been open to question. The absorption of 
 Turkey by Russia would be prevented by the 
 nations whose grave interests would be men- 
 aced by it. But the adjustment between Russia 
 and Turkey of the obscure boundary of an in- 
 significant province, in no way affecting the 
 outside world, would not warrant intervention. 
 When the United States purchased the prov- 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 89 
 
 ince of Alaska from Russia, would Great 
 Britain, though proprietor of so vast a terri- 
 tory in that part of the continent, have been 
 justified in undertaking to prevent it ? How 
 would such an attempt have been received by 
 the American people ? On the other hand, it 
 is easy enough to conceive of new acquisitions 
 by foreign powers in South American countries, 
 that would create a menace to our interests so 
 serious as to authorize and require our resist- 
 ance. Such was the attempt on the part of 
 France to establish a monarchy in Mexico, 
 against which our Government successfully in- 
 terposed. Such would be an effort by a Euro- 
 pean power to obtain control of Nicaragua, 
 destined to be the gate through which a great 
 commerce will pass, and which our plainest in- 
 terests require should be under our own con- 
 trol, or, at the least, that its neutrality and 
 freedom should be completely guaranteed. Il- 
 lustrations might be multiplied, were it requi- 
 site or useful. The distinction is apparent, 
 between the right to intervene between other 
 nations where it is reasonably necessary to our 
 own protection, and the unfounded claim of 
 such a right where it is in no sense necessary. 
 In the former case the quarrel in which we 
 
90 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 interpose is no longer that of the first parties 
 to it, only, for it has become our own. The 
 difference is the justification on which all 
 self-defence depends, whether national or indi- 
 vidual, — the necessity for its exercise. The 
 right goes always as far as the necessity, and 
 never goes any farther. He who invokes it 
 must justify it by showing that it was necessary. 
 
 Now, till some man can stand forth and 
 inform us how we are to be injured by the 
 adjustment of that Venezuelan boundary line, 
 I shall venture respectfully to assert that it is 
 a controversy we have no right to meddle 
 with. 
 
 But some of the advocates of the new 
 " Monroe doctrine," who feel compelled to 
 admit that it cannot be maintained as a riofht, 
 attempt to uphold it as being what they call 
 " American policy." 
 
 This ground is, if possible, still weaker. If 
 we have no right to intervene in a case where 
 we have no interest or concern, then such an 
 intervention would be a grave infraction of the 
 rights of the nation interfered with. Rights 
 are correlative and reciprocal, and where we 
 interfere without right, we do so against the 
 rights we seek to obstruct. Is it to be main- 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 91 
 
 tained that as a government it is our policy to 
 do to other nations against their will what we 
 have no right to do ? Where would such a 
 policy stop ? And how should we relish it 
 when applied to ourselves ? That it is the true 
 policy of a nation always to assert its own 
 rights is clear, but can it ever be its policy to 
 assail the rights of others ? Again, policy 
 means interest. We can have no policy, right 
 or wrong, where we have no interest. The 
 terms are synonymous. What sort of a policy 
 is it, then, which invades the rights of other 
 nations where we have nothing to gain by it ? 
 We may have, it is true, an interest in attaining 
 by just means that which we have no right to 
 demand. That may be the case among nations 
 as well as among individuals. But such a policy 
 must be worked out by those peaceable methods 
 through which in the business of this world 
 desirable ends are reached and advantages 
 acquired which cannot be taken by force. If, 
 therefore, we could even see that we have in 
 this case any interest to be attained that is not 
 a right to be enforced, it would afford no justifi- 
 cation at all for the attempt to assert it in 
 defiance of the rights of others. 
 
 In no view of the case, then, can the course 
 
92 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 of the Administration in this affair be justified. 
 It is a plain infraction of those established 
 principles in which all nations concur. They 
 have become international law, because they 
 are international right ; and they are right not 
 only because they are just, but because they 
 are indispensable. International law is inter- 
 national morality and justice, formulated by the 
 general consent of civilized men. That is its 
 basis and its sanction. The claim that Ameri- 
 cans are in any respect above or beyond this law 
 of the civilized world, or that we are invested 
 with authority to interfere in the affairs of other 
 nations in which we are in no way concerned, 
 merely because the location of the dispute is 
 in South America, are propositions that will 
 find no favor among just or thoughtful men. 
 We have no protectorate over South American 
 nations, and do not assume any responsibility 
 in their behalf. Our own rights there as else- 
 where, it is to be hoped, we shall never fail to 
 maintain. But those rights have their founda- 
 tion and their limit in the settled law to which 
 we are subject as all other nations are, and 
 which is as necessary to us as to them. 
 
 And when we undertake to assert that we 
 are not bound by that law, and care nothing 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 93 
 
 for the opinion of the world ; that we are 
 Americans and monarchs of all we survey ; 
 and that we are going to control the part of 
 this hemisphere that does not belong to us, 
 regardless of the rights of those to whom it 
 does belong, merely for the sake of doing it, 
 and because we think we are strong enough, 
 we adopt the language and the conduct of the 
 bully, and shall certainly encounter, if that is 
 persisted in, the bully's retribution. 
 
 In respect to the merits of the boundary 
 question between Venezuela and Great Britain 
 I say nothing, because I know nothing. Judg- 
 ing from past history in similar cases, I believe 
 it will turn out that there is no line there, and 
 never was, that is capable of being determined. 
 It has been the history almost always of un- 
 occupied regions, that their boundaries were 
 utterly vague. No occasion to define them 
 having arisen, and the world having no use for 
 the territory involved, the monuments and 
 landmarks on paper that were supposed to 
 designate them usually turn out either not 
 to exist, or to be too indefinite and uncertain 
 to be ascertained. By and by, in the progress 
 of the world, the tide of civilization overtakes 
 such regions, they are required for human 
 
94 The Monroe Doctrine, 
 
 occupation, and their resources are brought to 
 Hght. Then springs up the question of the 
 boundary, and perhaps violent disputes in re- 
 spect to it, and in due time they have to be 
 settled by a compromise, and by the drawing 
 of an arbitrary line that is agreed on and 
 mutually accepted, not as the old supposed 
 line that cannot be found, but as a new one that 
 is established because just and equitable. Such 
 has been the history of our own boundary lines 
 as they have gradually become important, in 
 Maine, in Oregon, and elsewhere, and by that 
 sort of compromise they have been ^happily 
 established, after much war talk. And such is 
 precisely the question we have pending to-day 
 with Great Britain, in respect to the boundary 
 between Alaska and British Columbia. By 
 the description given in the old treaty between 
 Great Britian and Russia under which we 
 claim, made long before the foot of a white 
 man had been set upon that region, and long 
 before any civilized occupation of it was antici- 
 pated as likely to occur, the boundary can 
 not be drawn, and the designation of it is 
 impossible to be pursued. The two govern- 
 ments are now engaged in surveys, not to 
 find the line that cannot be found, but to 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 95 
 
 acquire materials for making one that shall be 
 as nearly as possible just and fair. That, I 
 venture to say, will be the way and the only 
 way in which the line between Great Britain 
 and Venezuela can ever be established. And 
 if we desired to interfere in any controversy 
 between other nations, in which we have no 
 interest, such a one as that is the very last in 
 which we could undertake to find out which 
 party is in the right. How should we receive 
 a proposal by Mexico to interfere (if that re- 
 public was strong enough) between us and 
 Great Britain, in respect to the Alaskan line, in 
 order to ascertain that line for herself by an ex 
 parte commission of her own, and then to 
 compel the United States to accept it ? Yet 
 Mexico is as much entitled to a " Monroe 
 doctrine," in respect to disputes arising on this 
 continent in which she has no concern, as we 
 are. 
 
 A few words now in reference to our rela- 
 tions with Spain, in which what is called the 
 " Monroe doctrine " again comes to the front. 
 If the general intelligence of the nation will 
 not permit a groundless war with Great 
 Britain, it is proposed in certain quarters that 
 we should fight Spain, in order to help the 
 
96 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 rebels in Cuba to wrest that island from the gov- 
 ernment to which it belongs. And, as before, 
 our only reason is that Cuba is on this side of 
 the Atlantic. Cuba has been a part of Spain 
 for a very long time, the most valuable of her 
 diminished possessions. With Spain we are 
 on terms of absolute friendship, and always 
 have been. Spain ! An ancient nation long 
 celebrated in history, once the chief seat of 
 that fine learning which institutes like yours 
 are built to foster, whence and under the 
 patronage of whose enlightened queen, Co- 
 lumbus came to open this continent to our 
 ancestors. And now there has broken out in 
 her province a rebellion, which, so far as I can 
 learn, is a rebellion of banditti ; a rebellion of 
 pillage, and arson, and murder, with no at- 
 tempt at an organized government, no capital, 
 no centre, no recognized head. It has nothing 
 to stand on but crime. And it is proposed 
 that we shall attack Spain since she has be- 
 come less powerful than we are, and set up 
 that class of people in the independent gov- 
 ernment of Cuba. Upon what ground is this 
 proposal justified ? Again it is the " Monroe 
 doctrine." 
 
 Well, let us look at that for a moment. We 
 
The Monroe Doctrine. 97 
 
 had a rebellion of our own thirty years ago, a 
 very serious one, of four years' duration. It 
 was not an insurrection of banditti, robbing 
 and stealing and burning. It was the organi- 
 zation of a good many sovereign states, of a 
 large and intelligent people, with a constitu- 
 tion, a government, a regular army, very dis- 
 tinguished military and civil leaders, and all 
 that was necessary to national independence, 
 except the right of secession. And the exist- 
 ence of that was a matter of opinion. If the 
 South had possessed that right, it would have 
 deserved to succeed, and it would have suc- 
 ceeded. How should we have relished the 
 interference of Spain, or of any other country, 
 on this hemisphere or the other, to assist that 
 rebellion, on the sole plea that the people of 
 the Southern States claimed the right to set 
 up a government for themselves ? What a 
 feeling pervaded this country on the mere 
 suggestion that the sympathy of society in 
 England was to a greater or less degree 
 with the Confederate Government ! Not that 
 the British Government took a single step to 
 interfere against us, but it was asserted, and 
 with more or less truth, no doubt, that, 
 among a certain class of English people there 
 
98 The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 was a feeling of sympathy with the South. 
 And when the Alabama, built in England, 
 slipped out from her control to become a 
 privateer against the commerce of the North- 
 ern States, what was the feeling in this country 
 about that ? It was never claimed that there 
 was anything more than neglect on the part of 
 the British Government. It hesitated a little 
 too long over the evidence laid before it as to 
 the character of the vessel, and finally sent 
 down orders to stop her, about twenty-four 
 hours too late. And yet we were almost ready 
 to go to war with Great Britain over the depre- 
 dations of that ship, and but for the Geneva 
 arbitration a war might have ensued. What 
 do you suppose would have occurred if Great 
 Britain had taken up arms to assist the South- 
 ern rebellion ? 
 
 Now it is proposed that we should do to 
 Spain, in her imminent distress, what in our 
 own similar case we should have justly resented 
 to the very death, if it had been done to us by 
 any nation in the world. Can anything be 
 added by argument against such a proposal, to 
 the refutation which the very statement of it 
 affords ? Can it be justified to the sense of 
 any rational man, upon any ground that ever 
 
The Monroe Doctriiie. 99 
 
 was known ? Here again we encounter the 
 established principle of international law that 
 forbids such an interference, and makes it an 
 act of war, as unjustifiable as it is unnecessary. 
 Now, my friends, there is no American, I 
 trust, that ever would shrink one hair's breadth 
 from any war, let its calamities and horrors 
 and destruction be what they may, let its cost 
 be what it may, if it should be unhappily 
 necessary to vindicate our national honor, or 
 to protect our national interest. When that 
 time comes, we shall not be found, arguing 
 about the meaning of the Monroe doctrine, 
 nor shall we pause to inquire by what 
 name we shall baptize a sentiment that will 
 be irrepressible because it will be just. Is it 
 not best to wait for that emergency ? Is it not 
 best to maintain the peace which is indispen- 
 sable to our prosperity and welfare, until it 
 becomes necessary to break it ? And to refuse 
 to intermeddle in the controversies that con- 
 stantly succeed each other between the differ- 
 ent sections of mankind, till the time comes 
 when it can be shown that we have something 
 to do with one of them that requires our inter- 
 ference. Is not that the true definition of the 
 Monroe doctrine, if we choose to call by a name 
 
loo The Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 that does not belong to it, a very early and 
 fundamental principle in the law of nations ? 
 That is the ground, as it seems to me, on 
 which Americans should stand, in order to 
 preserve their own peace, and to help preserve 
 that of the world. And notwithstanding the 
 clamor of men who want war for war's sake ; 
 war for its contracts, and its plunder, and its 
 offices, and the spoil that can be gathered out 
 of the common calamity ; war to further 
 among the ignorant the chances of some party 
 candidate ; war to drive the country into the 
 curse and ruin of a dishonest currency, for the 
 benefit of those who have its material to sell ; 
 or to give a fictitious value to the bonds of 
 a Cuban government that does not exist, and 
 would be utterly worthless if it did — that is 
 the ground on which, as I believe, the sound 
 good sense of the American people, which 
 comes to the front with irresistible force when 
 the occasion is great enough to demand it, will 
 plant itself, now and always, for the country's 
 sake. 
 
ARBITRATION 
 IN INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES 
 
 By Carl Schurz 
 
ARBITRATION 
 IN INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES/ 
 
 By Carl Schurz. 
 
 I HAVE been honored with the request that 
 I should address you on the desirableness 
 of arbitration as a method of settling interna- 
 tional disputes. To show that arbitration is 
 preferable to war, should be among civilized 
 people as superfluous as to show that to refer 
 disputes between individuals or associations to 
 courts of justice is better than to refer them to 
 single combat or to street fights — in one word, 
 that the ways of civilization are preferable to 
 those of barbarism. Neither is there any doubt 
 as to the practicability of international arbitra- 
 tion. What seemed an idealistic dream in 
 Hugo Grotius's time, is now largely an estab- 
 lished practice ; no longer an uncertain experi- 
 ment, but an acknowledged success. In this 
 
 ' Address delivered at the Arbitration Conference in Washington 
 April 22, 1896. 
 
 103 
 
1 04 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 century not less than eighty controversies be- 
 tween civilized powers have been composed by 
 arbitration. And more than that. Every 
 international dispute settled by arbitration has 
 stayed settled, while during the same period 
 some of the results of great wars have not 
 stayed settled, and others are unceasingly 
 drawn in question, being subject to the shift- 
 ing preponderance of power. And such wars 
 have cost rivers of blood, countless treasure, 
 and immeasurable misery, while arbitration 
 has cost comparatively nothing. Thus history 
 teaches the indisputable lesson that arbitration 
 is not only the most humane and economical 
 method of settling international differences, 
 but also the most, if not the only, certain 
 method to furnish enduring results. 
 
 As to the part war has played and may still 
 have to play in the history of mankind, I do 
 not judge as a blind sentimentalist. I readily 
 admit that, by the side of horrible devasta- 
 tions, barbarous cruelty, great and beneficent 
 things have been accomplished by means of 
 war in forming nations and in spreading and 
 establishing the rule or influence of the capable 
 and progressive. I will not inquire how much 
 of this work still remains to be done and what 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 1 05 
 
 place war may have in it. But surely, among 
 the civilized nations of to-day — and these we 
 are considering — the existing conditions of in- 
 tercourse largely preclude war as an agency 
 for salutary objects. The steamship, the rail- 
 road, the telegraph, the postal union, and other 
 international arrangements facilitating trans- 
 portation and the circulation of intelligence 
 have broken down many of the barriers which 
 formerly enabled nations to lead separate lives, 
 and have made them in those things which 
 constitute the agencies of well-being and of 
 progressive civilization in a very high degree 
 dependent upon each other. And this devel- 
 opment of common life-interests and mutual 
 furtherance, mental as well as material, still 
 goes on in continuous growth. Thus a war 
 between civilized nations means now a rupture 
 of arteries of common life-blood, a stoppage of 
 the agencies of common well-being and ad- 
 vancement, a waste of energies serviceable to 
 common interests — in one word, a general dis- 
 aster, infinitely more serious than it did in 
 times gone by ; and it is, consequently, now 
 an infinitely more heinous crime against hu- 
 manity, unless not only the ends it is to serve 
 fully justify the sacrifices it entails, but unless 
 
io6 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 also all expedients suggested by the genius of 
 peace have been exhausted to avert the armed 
 conflict. 
 
 Of those pacific expedients, when ordinary 
 diplomatic negotiation does not avail, arbitra- 
 tion has proved itself most effective. And it 
 is the object of the movement in which we are 
 engaged to make the resort to arbitration, in 
 case of international difficulty, still more easy, 
 more regular, more normal, more habitual, and 
 thereby to render the resort to war more un- 
 natural and more difficult than heretofore. 
 
 In this movement the Republic of the United 
 States is the natural leader, and I can conceive 
 for it no nobler or more beneficent mission. 
 The naturalness of this leadership is owing to 
 its peculiar position among the nations of the 
 earth. Look at the powers of the Old World, 
 how each of them is uneasily watching the 
 other ; how conflicting interests or ambitions 
 are constantly exciting new anxieties ; how 
 they are all armed to the teeth and nervously 
 increase their armaments, lest a hostile neigh- 
 bor overmatch them ; how they are piling ex- 
 pense upon expense and tax upon tax to 
 augment their instruments of destruction ; 
 how, as has been said, every workingman 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 107 
 
 toiling for his daily bread has to carry a full- 
 armed soldier or sailor on his back ; and how, 
 in spite of those bristling armaments, their 
 sleep is unceasingly troubled by dreams of in- 
 terests threatened, of marches stolen upon 
 them, of combinations hatched against them, 
 and of the danger of some accident breaking 
 the precarious peace and setting those gigantic 
 and exhausting preparations in motion for the 
 work of ravage and ruin. 
 
 And then look at this Republic, stronger than 
 any nation in Europe in the number, intelli- 
 gence, vigor, and patriotism of its people, and 
 in the unparalleled abundance of its barely 
 broacihed resources ; resting with full security 
 in its magnificent domain ; standing safely aloof 
 from the feuds of the Old World ; substan- 
 tially unassailable in its great continental 
 stronghold ; no dangerous neighbors threaten- 
 ing its borders ; no outlying and exposed posses- 
 sions to make it anxious ; the only great power 
 in the world seeing no need of keeping up vast 
 standing armaments on land or sea to main- 
 tain its peace or to protect its integrity ; its 
 free institutions making its people the sole 
 master of its destinies ; and its best political 
 traditions pointing to a general policy of peace 
 
io8 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 and good-will among men. What nation is 
 there better fitted to be the champion of this 
 cause of peace and_ good-will than this, so 
 strong although unarmed, and so entirely ex- 
 empt from any imputation of the motive of 
 fear or of selfish advantage ? Truly, this 
 Republic, with its power and its opportunities, 
 is the pet of destiny. 
 
 As an American citizen, I cannot contem- 
 plate this noble peace mission of my country 
 without a thrill of pride. And, I must confess, 
 it touches me like an attack upon the dignity 
 of this Republic when I hear Americans re- 
 pudiate that peace mission upon the ground of 
 supposed interests of the United States requir- 
 ing for their protection or furtherance prepara- 
 tion for warlike action and the incitement of a 
 fighting spirit among our people. To judge 
 from the utterances of some men having the 
 public ear, we are constantly threatened by the 
 evil designs of rival or secretly hostile powers 
 that are eagerly watching every chance to 
 humiliate our self-esteem, to insult our flag, to 
 balk our policies, to harass our commerce, and 
 even to threaten our very independence, and 
 putting us in imminent danger of discomfiture 
 of all sorts, unless we stand with sword in 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 109 
 
 hand in sleepless watch and cover the seas 
 with warships and picket the islands of every 
 ocean with garrisoned outposts, and surround 
 ourselves far and near with impregnable for- 
 tresses. What a poor idea those indulging in 
 such talk have of the true position of their 
 country among the nations of the world ! 
 
 A little calm reflection will convince every 
 unprejudiced mind that there is not a single 
 power, nor even an imaginable combination of 
 powers, on the face of the globe that can wish 
 — I might almost say that can afford — a seri- 
 ous quarrel with the United States. There 
 are very simple reasons for this. A war in 
 our days is not a mere matter of military skill, 
 nor even — as it would certainly not be in our 
 case — a mere matter of preparation for the 
 first onset. It is a matter of material resources, 
 of reserves, of staying power. Now, consider- 
 ing that in all these respects our means are 
 substantially inexhaustible, and that, the patri- 
 otic spirit and the extraordinary ingenuity of 
 our people would greatly aid their develop- 
 ment in the progress of a conflict ; considering 
 that, however grievous the injuries a strong 
 hostile navy might inflict upon us at the be- 
 ginning of a war, it could not touch a vital 
 
no Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 point, as on land we would be immensely 
 superior to any army that could be brought 
 upon our shores ; considering that thus a war 
 with the United States, as a test of endurance, 
 would, so far as our staying power is con- 
 cerned, be a war of indefinite duration ; consid- 
 ering all these things, I am justified in saying 
 that no European power can engage in such a 
 conflict with us without presenting to its rivals 
 in the Old World the most tempting oppor- 
 tunity for hostile action. And no European 
 power will do this, unless forced by extreme 
 necessity. For the same reason no European 
 power will, even if it were so inclined, insist 
 upon doing anything injurious to our interests 
 that might lead to a war with the United 
 States. We may therefore depend upon it 
 with absolute assurance that, whether we are 
 armed or not, no European power will seek a 
 quarrel with us ; that, on the contrary, they 
 will avoid such a quarrel with the utmost care ; 
 that we cannot have a war with any of them, 
 unless we wantonly and persistently seek such 
 a war ; and that they will respect our rights 
 and comply with all our demands, if just and 
 proper, in the way of friendly agreement. 
 If anybody doubts this, let him look at a 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 1 1 1 
 
 recent occurrence. The alarmists about the 
 hostility to us of foreign powers usually have 
 Great Britain in their minds. I am very sure 
 President Cleveland, when he wrote his Ven- 
 ezuela message, did not mean to provoke a 
 war with Great Britain. But the language of 
 that message might have been construed as 
 such a provocation by anybody inclined to do 
 so. Had Great Britain wished a quarrel with 
 us, here was a tempting opportunity. Every- 
 body knew that we had but a small navy, an 
 insignificant standing army, and no coast de- 
 fences ; that in fact we were entirely unpre- 
 pared for a conflict. The public opinion of 
 Europe, tpo, was against us. What did the 
 British Government do ? It did not avail it- 
 self of that opportunity. It did not resent the 
 language of the message. 
 
 On the contrary, the Queen's speech from 
 the throne gracefully turned that message into 
 an " expression of willingness" on the part of 
 the United States to co-operate with Great 
 Britain in the adjustment of the Venezuela 
 boundary dispute. 
 
 It has been said that the conciliatory mild- 
 ness of this turn was owing to the impression 
 produced in England by the German Em- 
 
112 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 peror's congratulatory dispatch to the Presi- 
 dent of the South African Republic. If 
 the two things were so connected, it would 
 prove what I have said, that even the strong- 
 est European government will be deterred 
 from a quarrel with the United States by the 
 opportunities which such a quarrel would open 
 to its rivals. If the two things were not so 
 connected it would prove that even the strong- 
 est European power will go to very great 
 lengths in the way of conciliation to remain on 
 friendly terms with this Republic. 
 
 In the face of these indisputable facts we hear 
 the hysterical cries of the alarmists who scent be- 
 hind every rock or bush a foreign foe standing 
 with dagger in hand ready to spring upon us, 
 and to rob us of our valuables, if not to kill 
 us outright — or at least making faces at us and 
 insulting the Stars and Stripes. Is not this 
 constant and eager looking for danger or insult 
 where neither exists, very like that melancholy 
 form of insanity called persecution mania, 
 which is so extremely distressing to the suf- 
 ferers and their friends ? We may heartily 
 commiserate the unfortunate victims of so 
 dreadful an affliction ; but surely the American 
 people should not take such morbid hallucina- 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 1 1 3 
 
 tions as a reason for giving up that inestimable 
 blessing of not being burdened with large 
 armaments, and for embarking upon a policy 
 of warlike preparation and bellicose bluster. 
 
 It is a little less absurd in sound, but not in 
 sense, when people say that instead of trusting 
 in our position as the great peace power 
 we must at least have plenty of warships to 
 " show our flag " everywhere, and to impress 
 foreign nations with our strength to the end of 
 protecting and developing our maritime com- 
 merce. Granting that we should have a suffi- 
 cient naval force to do our share of police work 
 on the seas, would a large armament be required 
 on account of our maritime trade ? Let us 
 see. Fifty years ago, as the official statistics 
 of " the value of foreign trade carried in 
 American and in foreign vessels " show, nearly 
 82 per cent, of that trade was carried on in 
 American vessels. Between 1847 3^"^ 1861, 
 that percentage fell to 65. Then the civil war 
 came, at the close of which American bottoms 
 carried only 28 per cent, of that trade ; and 
 now we carry less than 1 2 per cent. During the 
 period when this maritime trade rose to its high- 
 est development, we had no naval force to be 
 in any degree compared with those of the great 
 
1 14 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 European powers. Nor did we need any for 
 the protection of our maritime commerce, for 
 no foreign power molested that commerce. 
 In fact, since the war of 18 12, it has not been 
 molested by anybody so as to require armed 
 protection except during the civil war by Con- 
 federate cruisers. The harassment ceased 
 again when the civil war ended, but our mer- 
 chant shipping on the high seas continued to 
 decline. 
 
 That decline was evidently not owing to the 
 superiority of other nations in naval armament. 
 It was coincident with the development of 
 ocean transportation by iron steamships instead 
 of wooden sailing ships. The wooden sailing 
 ships we had in plenty, but of iron steamships 
 we have only few. It appears, therefore, that 
 whatever we may need a large war fleet for, it 
 is certainly not for the development of our 
 maritime commerce. To raise that commerce 
 to its old superiority again, we want not more 
 warships but more merchant vessels. To ob- 
 tain these we need a policy enabling American 
 capital and enterprise to compete in that busi- 
 ness with foreign nations. And to make such 
 a policy fruitful, we need, above all things, 
 peace. And we shall have that peace so long 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 1 1 5 
 
 as we abstain from driving some foreign power 
 against its own inclination into a war with the 
 United States. 
 
 Can there be any motive, other than the 
 absurd ones mentioned, to induce us to pro- 
 voke such a war ? I have heard it said that a 
 war might be desirable to enliven business 
 again. Would that not be as wise and moral 
 as a proposition to burn down our cities for the 
 purpose of giving the masons and carpenters 
 something to do ? Nay, we are even told that 
 there are persons who would have a foreign 
 war on any pretext, no matter with whom, to 
 the end of bringing on a certain change in our 
 monetary policy. But the thought of plotting 
 in cold blood to break the peace of the country 
 and to send thousands of our youths to slaugh- 
 ter and to desolate thousands of American 
 homes for an object of internal policy, what- 
 ever it may be, is so abominable, so ghastly, 
 so appalling, that I dismiss it as impossible of 
 belief. 
 
 I know, however, from personal experience, 
 of some otherwise honorable and sensible men 
 who wish for a war on sentimental — aye, on 
 high moral grounds. One of them, whom I 
 much esteem, confessed to me that he longed 
 
1 1 6 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 for a war, if not with England, then with Spain 
 or some other power, as he said, "to lift the 
 American people out of their materialism, and 
 to awaken once more that heroic spirit which 
 moved young Gushing to risk his life in blow- 
 ing up the Confederate steamer Albemarle." 
 This, when I heard it, fairly took my breath 
 away. And yet, we must admit, such fanciful 
 confusion of ideas is not without charm to some 
 of our high-spirited young men. But what a 
 mocking delusion it is ! To lift a people out 
 of materialism by war ! Has not war always 
 excited the spirit of reckless and unscrupulous 
 speculation, not only while it was going on, but 
 also afterwards, by the economic disorders ac- 
 companying and outlasting it ? Has it not 
 always stimulated the rapid and often dis- 
 honest accumulation of riches on one side, 
 while spreading and intensifying want and 
 misery on the other ? Has it not thus always 
 had a tendency to plunge a people still deeper 
 into materialism ? Has not every great war 
 left a dark streak of demoralization behind ? 
 Has it not thus always proved dangerous to 
 the purity of republican governments ? Is not 
 this our own experience ? And as to awaken- 
 ing the heroic spirit — does it not, while stirring 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 1 1 7 
 
 noble impulses in some, excite the base pas- 
 sions in others ? And do not the young Cush- 
 ings among us find opportunities for heroism 
 in the life of peace too ? Would it be wise in 
 the economy of the universe to bring on a war, 
 with its bloodshed and devastation, its distress 
 and mourning, merely for the purpose of ac- 
 commodating our young braves with chances 
 for blowing up ships ? The old Roman poet 
 tells us that it is sweet and glorious to die for 
 one's country. It is noble, indeed. But to die 
 on the battle-field is not the highest achieve- 
 ment of heroism. To live for a good cause 
 honestly, earnestly, unselfishly, laboriously, is 
 at least as noble and heroic as to die for it, and 
 usually far more difficult. 
 
 I have seen war ; I have seen it with its 
 glories and its horrors ; with its noble emotions 
 and its bestialities ; with its exaltations and 
 triumphs and its unspeakable miseries and 
 baneful corruptions ; and I say to you, I feel 
 my blood tingle with indignation when I hear 
 the flippant talk of war as if it were only a 
 holiday pastime or an athletic sport. We are 
 often told that there are things worse than war. 
 Yes, but not many. He deserves the curse of 
 mankind who in the exercise of power forgets 
 
1 18 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 that war should be only the very last resort 
 even in contending for a just and beneficent 
 end, after all the resources of peaceful methods 
 are thoroughly exhausted. As an American, 
 proud of his country and anxious that this Re- 
 public should prove itself equal to the most 
 glorious of its opportunities, I cannot but de- 
 nounce as a wretched fatuity that so-called 
 patriotism which will not remember that we 
 are the envy of the whole world for the price- 
 less privilege of being exempt from the oppres- 
 sive burden of warlike preparations ; which, 
 when it sees other nations groaning under that 
 load, tauntingly asks, " Why do you not dis- 
 arm ? " and then insists that the American 
 people too shall put the incubus of heavy 
 armament on their backs ; and which would 
 drag this Republic down from its high degree 
 of the championship of peace among nations 
 and degrade it to the vulgar level of the bully 
 ready and eager for a fight. 
 
 We hear much of the necessity of an elabo- 
 rate system of coast fortifications to protect our 
 seaports from assault. How far such a system 
 may be desirable I will not here discuss. But 
 I am confident our strongest; most effective, 
 most trustworthy, and infinitely the cheapest 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 119 
 
 coast defence will consist in " Fort Justice," 
 " Fort Good Sense," " Fort Self-respect," 
 " Fort Good-will," and if international differ- 
 ences really do arise, " Fort Arbitration." 
 
 Let no one accuse me of resorting to the 
 clap-trap of the stump speech in discussing this 
 grave subject. I mean exactly what I say, and 
 am solemnly in earnest. This Republic can 
 have no other armament as effective as the 
 weapons of peace. Its security, its influence, 
 its happiness, and its glory will be the greater 
 the less it thinks of war. Its moral authority 
 will be far more potent than the heavy 
 squadrons and the big guns of others. And 
 this authority will, in its intercourse with 
 foreign nations, be best maintained by that 
 justice which is the duty of all ; by that gener- 
 ous regard not only for the rights, but also the 
 self-respect, of others, which is the distinguish- 
 ing mark of the true gentleman : and by that 
 patient forbearance which is the most gracious 
 virtue of the strong. 
 
 For all these reasons it appears to me this 
 Republic is the natural champion of the great 
 peace measure, for the furtherance of which 
 we are met. The permanent establishment of 
 a general court of arbitration to be composed 
 
1 20 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 of representative jurists of the principal states, 
 and to take cognizance of all internationl dis- 
 putes that cannot be settled by ordinary diplo- 
 matic negotiation, is no doubt the ideal to be 
 aimed at. If this cannot be reached at once, 
 the conclusion of an arbitration treaty between 
 the United States and Great Britain may be 
 regarded as a great step in that direction. 
 
 I say this not as a so-called Anglo-maniac 
 bowing down before everything English. 
 While I admire the magnificent qualities and 
 achievements of that great nation, I am not 
 blind to its faults. I suppose Englishmen 
 candidly expressing their sentiments speak in 
 a similar strain of us. But I believe that an 
 arbitration agreement between just these two 
 countries would not only be of immense im- 
 portance to themselves, but also serve as an 
 example to invite imitation in wider circles. 
 In this respect I do not think that the so-called 
 blood-relationship of the two nations, which 
 would make such an arbitration agreement be- 
 tween them appear more natural, furnishes the 
 strongest reason for it. It is indeed true that 
 the ties binding the two peoples sentimentally 
 togethei: would give to a war between them an 
 especially wicked and heinous aspect. But 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 1 2 1 
 
 were their arbitration agreement placed mainly 
 on this ground, it would lose much of its im- 
 portant significance for the world at large. 
 
 In truth, however, the common ancestry, the 
 common origin of institutions and laws, the 
 common traditions, the common literature, and 
 so on, have not prevented conflicts between the 
 Americans and the English before, and they 
 would not alone be sufficient to prevent them 
 in the future. Such conflicts may, indeed, be 
 regarded as family feuds ; but family feuds are 
 apt to be the bitterest oY all. In point of fact, 
 there is by no means such a community or 
 accord of interest or feeling between the two 
 nations as to preclude hot rivalries and jeal- 
 ousies on many fields, which might now and 
 then bring forth an exciting clash. We hear 
 it even said in this country that Great Britain 
 is not the power with whom to have a perma- 
 nent peace arrangement, because she is so high- 
 handed in her dealings with other nations. I 
 should not wonder if the same thing were said 
 in England about the United States. This of 
 course is not an argument against an arbitra- 
 tion agreement, but rather for it. Such an 
 arrangement between nations of such temper 
 is especially called for to prevent that temper 
 
1 2 2 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 from running away with calm reason. Between 
 perfect angels from heaven an arbitration treaty 
 would be superfluous. 
 
 The institution of a regulated and perma- 
 nent system of arbitration between the United 
 States and Great .Britain would therefore not 
 be a mere sentimental cooing between loving 
 cousins, nor a mere stage show gotten up for 
 the amusement of the public, but a very seri- 
 ous contrivance intended for very serious busi- 
 ness. It will set to mankind the example of 
 two very great nations, the greatest rivals in 
 the world, neither of them a mere theorist or 
 sentimental dreamer, both intensely practical, 
 self-willed, and hard-headed, deliberately agree- 
 ing to abstain from the barbarous ways of 
 bygone times in adjusting the questions of 
 conflicting interest or ambition that may arise 
 between them, and to resort instead in all 
 cases of difficulty to the peaceable and civilized 
 methods suggested by the enlightenment, the 
 moral sense, and the humane spirit of our age. 
 If these two nations prove that this can be 
 done, will not the conclusion gradually force 
 itself upon other civilized nations that by 
 others too it ought to be done, and finally that 
 it must be done ? This is the service to be 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes, i 2 3 
 
 rendered, not only to ourselves, but to man- 
 kind. 
 
 While the practicability of international ar- 
 bitration by tribunals established in each case 
 has been triumphantly proved, there is some 
 difference of opinion as to whether a perma- 
 nent tribunal is possible, whether it can be so 
 organized as to be fit for the adjustment of all 
 disputes that might come before it, and whether 
 there would be any power behind it to enforce 
 its adjudications in case one party or the other 
 refused to comply. Such doubts should not 
 disturb our purpose. Similar doubts had to 
 be overcome at every step of the progress 
 from the ancient wager of battle to the present 
 organization of courts of justice. I am san- 
 guine enough to believe that as soon as the 
 two governments have once resolved that a 
 fixed system of international arbitration shall 
 be established between them, the same ingen- 
 uity which has been exerted in discovering 
 difficulties will then be exerted in removing 
 them, and most of them will be found not to 
 exist. The end to be reached in good faith 
 determined upon, a workable machinery will 
 soon be devised, be it a permanent arbitration 
 tribunal, or the adoption of an organic rule for 
 
124 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 the appointment of a special tribunal for each 
 case. We may trust to experience to develop 
 the best system. 
 
 Neither am I troubled by the objection that 
 there are some international disputes which in 
 their very nature cannot be submitted to arbi- 
 tration, especially those involving questions of 
 national honor. When the habit of such sub- 
 mission is once well established, it will doubt- 
 less be found that most of the questions now 
 thought unfit for it, are entirely capable of 
 composition by methods of reason and equity. 
 And as to so-called questions of honor, it 
 is time for modern civilization to leave behind 
 it those mediaeval notions according to which 
 personal honor found its best protection in the 
 duelling pistol, and national honor could be 
 vindicated only by slaughter and devastation. 
 Moreover, was not the great Alabama case, 
 which involved points very closely akin to 
 questions of honor, settled by international 
 arbitration, and does not this magnificent 
 achievement form one of the most glorious 
 pages of the common history of America and 
 England ? Truly, the two nations that ac- 
 complished this, need not be afraid of unad- 
 justable questions of honor in the future. 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes, i 2 5 
 
 Indeed, there will be no recognized power 
 behind a Court of Arbitration, like an inter- 
 national sheriff or other executionary force, to 
 compel the acceptance of its decisions by an 
 unwilling party. In this extreme case there 
 would be, as the worst possible result, what 
 there would have been without arbitration — 
 war. But in how many of the fourscore cases 
 of international arbitration we have witnessed 
 in this century has such an enforcing power 
 been needed ? In not a single one. In every 
 instance the same spirit which moved the 
 contending parties to accept arbitration, moved 
 them to accept the verdict. Why, then, bor- 
 row trouble where experience has shown that 
 there is no danger of mischief? The most 
 trustworthy compelling power will always be 
 the sense of honor of the parties concerned 
 and their respect for the enlightened judgment 
 of civilized mankind which will watch the pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 We may, therefore, confidently expect that 
 a permanent system of arbitration will prove 
 as feasible as it is desirable. Nor is there any 
 reason to doubt that its general purpose is in- 
 telligently and warmly favored by the best 
 public sentiment both in England and in the 
 
126 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 United States. The memorial of two hundred 
 and thirty-three members of the British House 
 of Commons, which, in 1887, was presented to 
 the President and the Congress of the United 
 States, expressing the wish that all future dif- 
 ferences between the two countries be sub- 
 mitted to arbitration, was, in 1890, echoed by 
 a unanimous vote of our Congress requesting 
 the President to open negotiations in this 
 sense with all countries with which we had 
 diplomatic relations. Again this sentiment 
 broke forth in England as well as here on the 
 occasion of the Venezuela excitement in de- 
 monstrations of the highest respectability. In- 
 deed, the popular desire as well as the argument 
 seem to be all on one side. I have heard of 
 only one objection that makes the slightest 
 pretence to statesmanship, and it need only be 
 stated to cover its supporters with confusion. 
 It is that we are a young and aspiring people, 
 and that a binding arbitration treaty would 
 hamper us in our freedom of action. 
 
 Let the light be turned upon this. What is 
 it that an arbitration treaty contemplates ? 
 That in all cases of dispute between this and 
 a certain other country there shall be an im- 
 partial tribunal regularly appointed to decide 
 
Arbitration in International Disputes. 1 2 7 
 
 upon principles of international law, of equity, 
 of reason, what this and what the other coun- 
 try may be justly entitled to. And this arrange> 
 ment is to be shunned as hampering our free- 
 dom of action ! 
 
 What will you think of a man who tells you 
 that he feels himself intolerably hampered in 
 his freedom of action by the ten command- 
 ments or by the criminal code ? What respect 
 and confidence can a nation claim for its char- 
 acter that rejects a trustworthy and well- 
 regulated method of ascertaining and establish- 
 ing right and justice, avowedly to preserve its 
 freedom of action ? Shame upon those who 
 would have this great Republic play so dis- 
 reputable a part ! I protest that the American 
 people are an honorable people. Wherever 
 its interests or ambitions may lead this great 
 nation, I am sure it will always preserve that 
 self-respect which will prompt it rather to court 
 the search-light of truth and justice than by 
 skulking on dark and devious paths seek to 
 evade it. 
 
 Therefore, I doubt not that the patriotic 
 citizens assembled here to promote the estab- 
 lishment of a permanent system of international 
 arbitration may be confident of having the 
 
128 Arbitration in International Disputes. 
 
 warm sympathy of the American people be- 
 hind them when they knock at the door of the 
 President of the United States and say to hin. ;, 
 " In the name of all good Americans we co,iti- 
 mend this cause to your care. If carried to a 
 successful issue it will hold up this Republic to 
 its noblest ideals. It will illuminate with fresh 
 lustre the close of this great century. It will 
 write the name of the American people fore- 
 most upon the roll of the champions of the 
 world's peace and of true civilization." 
 
SOUND MONEY. 
 
 THE SILVER SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES. By 
 
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 CHAPTERS ON THE THEORY AND HISTORY OF 
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 A SOUND CURRENCY AND BANKING SYSTEM: HOW 
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THE NATURAL LAW OF MONEY. The successive steps in the 
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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 AUTHOR INDEX TO THE 
 'QUESTIONS OF THE" DAY" SERIES. 
 
 Alexander, E. P., No. 36 
 Allen, J. H., No. 53 
 Atkinson, E., No. 40 
 Bagehot, W., No. 28 
 Baker, C. W. , No. 59 
 Blair, L. H., No. 35 
 Bonham, J. M., No. 61 
 Bourne, E. G., No. 24 
 Bowker, R. R., No. 10 
 Bruce, P. A., No. 57. 
 Cleveland, G., No. 48 
 Codman, J., No. 64 
 Cowperthwait, J. H.,'No. 69 
 Dabney, W. D., No. 60 
 Donnell, E. J., Nos. 16, 56 
 Dos Passes, J. R., No. 38 
 Douglas, J., No. 78 
 Dugdale, R. L., No. 14 
 Eaton, D. B., No. Bl 
 Ehrich, L. R., No. 70 
 . Elliott. J. R., No. 62 
 Eoote, A. R., No. 82 
 Ford, W. C, Nos. 5, 6 
 Foulke, W. D., No. 43 
 Giffen, R., No. 20 
 Gordon, A. C., No. 85 
 HaU, B., No. 71 
 Hitchcock, H., No. 37 
 jacobi; M. P., No. 80 
 
 Jones, W. H., No. 39 
 
 Juglar, C., No. 75 
 
 Lawton, G. W., No. 25 
 
 Lowell, J. S., Nos. 13, 70 
 
 Lunt, E. C, No. 44 
 
 Moore, J. S., No., 50 
 
 Norman, H., No. 42 
 
 Palm, A. J., No. 66 
 
 Phelps, E. J., No. 87 
 
 Philpott, H. J., No. 52 
 
 Putnam, G. H., No. 67 
 
 Remsen, D. S., No. 77 
 
 Roosevelt, T., No. 49 
 
 Schoenhof, J., Nos. 9, 30, 73, 86 
 
 Schurz, Carl, No. 87 
 
 Shearman, Thos. G., No. 83 
 
 Sherman, Hon. P., No. 65 
 
 Shriver, E. J., No. 63 
 
 Smith, R. H., No. 26 
 
 Stokes, A. P., flo.. 79 
 
 Storey, M., No. 58 
 
 Strange, D., No. 72 
 
 Taussig, F. W., Nos. 47, 74 
 
 "Tax-Payer," No. 55 
 
 Tyler, L. G., No. 68 
 
 Wells, D. A., Nos. 3, S4. 64, ^l, 87 
 
 Wheeler, E. P., No. 84 
 
 Winn, H., No. 46 
 
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