In 1897, a treaty of arbitration arranged between the United States and Great Britain was defeated by a minority of the Senate. Three senators,

whose combined constituents amounted in number to less than the population of Chicago, succeeded in defeating the necessary two thirds vote, thereby thwarting the will of the great majority of the people of two nations. Extraneous questions, like that of Home Rule, which agitated the Irish element in America, helped toward this defeat, which was a world calamity. In 1911, President Taft secured the acceptance by Great Britain and France of arbitration treaties which covered all justiciable questions, thus no longer excluding those of vital interest and honour which had limited our previous treaties with twenty-four nations. He declared his own willingness to leave the question of justiciability to the Hague Tribunal itself, but in deference to existing conservatism he felt the time for this was not ripe. A provision was therefore made in the treaty that a High Commission of Inquiry, of six members, should consider the justiciability of a case if it were called in question by one of the nations party to the treaty, and that if five of the six so agreed the case should be considered justiciable. The extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm with which the proposal for this treaty was hailed in Great Britain was a revelation of the immense interest taken by the highest dignitaries of Church and State as well as by the rank and file of Englishmen

in prospect of a noble culmination to the hundred years of peace between Great Britain and the United States. A campaign of education lasting six months was begun in the United States upon the publication of a majority report of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate which raised technical objections and would have emasculated the treaties. Never was the Senate so besieged by petitions and letters from boards of trade, churches, and all kinds of organisations, in favour of these treaties. Germany seemed ready to sign a similar treaty; and it was evident that, if these treaties were accepted without amendment, it would probably be possible to secure similar ones within ten years with every nation upon the earth. By the casting of one single vote the specified function of the High Commission was thrown out; and the treaties were otherwise weakened in dignity and proper form. The result was due to a division on party lines. Had not partisanship been rife, owing to the high feeling incident to a presidential election, or had absent supporters of the treaty been present, this second calamity might have been avoided. As a result, four nations have been thwarted in making an unparalleled advance toward world peace and justice which would have placed the United States upon a moral eminence and made it the bold leader of the nations. Said Lord Weardale, president of the Interparliamentary Union, when the news reached

London:

The Senate has definitely struck a blow at the whole position of leadership in advancing arbitration which the United States took when President Taft boldly proposed the draft of a convention which though negotiated with England and France was open to all other powers. I shall be surprised if the American people do not shortly realise the unfortunate circumstances which have defeated the great civilising purpose on which I have not a doubt the great majority of them have been anxiously intent.

To this brief glance at the general course of arbitration may be added a special survey of what has been accomplished in Latin America.

It is to Simon Bolivar, the Washington of South America, that five nations owe their freedom from the thraldom of Spain. A statesman of the broadest views, in the second decade of the last century he arranged five treaties with as many nations in which there was provision for arbitration of differences rising between them. He called the first Pan-American Peace Congress in 1826, at which the four nations which attended pledged themselves to "amicably compromise all differences now existing or which may arise in the future." Though these pledges were not ratified, their influence was later evident in the many treaties which provided for arbitration. In the constitutions of Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, San Domingo, and the states of Central America appear provisions for efforts for arbitration before declaring war. In the constitution of Brazil it is