force, but, if necessary, should be decided and tempered by full and equal discussion between all the powers whose people and whose national interests are involved.

At the present moment, the completeness of the victory of Chili seems to render such a diplomatic discussion impossible. The result of the conflict has been not only the defeat of the allied armies, but the dissolution of all responsible government in Peru. . . .

An effort, and apparently a very earnest and honest one, has been made to create a provisional government, which shall gradually restore order and the reign of law. But it is obvious that for such a government to succeed in obtaining the confidence either of its own people or foreign powers, it must be allowed a freedom and force of action which cannot be exercised while Chili holds absolute possession and governs by military authority. This government, therefore, has been glad to learn from its minister in Chili, whom you succeed, that the Chilian authorities have decided to give their support to the efforts of Señor Calderon to establish on a steady footing a provisional government in Peru.

You will, as far as you can do so with propriety and without officious intrusion, approve and encourage this disposition on the part of the Chilian Government, and this Department will be exceedingly gratified if your influence as the representative of the United States shall be instrumental in inducing the Government of Chili to give its aid and support to the restoration of regular, constitutional government in Peru, and to postpone the final settlement of all questions of territorial annexation to the diplomatic negotiations which can then be resumed with the certainty of a just, friendly, and satisfactory conclusion.

In any representation which you may make, you will say that the hope of the United States is that the negotiations for peace shall be conducted, and the final settlement between the two countries determined, without either side invoking the aid or intervention of any European power.

The Government of the United States seeks only to perform the part of a friend to all the parties in this unhappy conflict between South American republics, and it will regret to be compelled to consider how far that feeling might be affected, and a more active interposition forced upon it, by any attempted complication of this question with European politics.

House Executive Documents, 47 Cong., I sess. (Washington, 1882), I, No. 1, pt. 1, pp. 131-133 passim.

178. Bering Sea Arbitration (1893)

BY PRESIDENT BARON ALPHONSE DE COURCEL, JAMES LORD

HANNEN, AND SENATOR JOHN TYLER MORGAN

In 1892 Great Britain and the United States submitted to arbitration the question as to the jurisdictional rights of the United States in the waters of Bering Sea, especially her right to regulate or prohibit pelagic sealing. The treaty further provided that, in case the award was against the claims of the United States, the arbitrators should decide upon a set of concurrent regulations for the protection and preservation of the fur seals resorting to Bering Sea; and the two nations agreed to coöperate in securing the adhesion of other powers to such regulations. The award was against the claims of the United States; regulations were drawn up and included in it, but they proved ineffectual. This extract is taken from the speeches of the arbitrators at the time of the presentation of the award. — Bibliography as in No. 175 above.

[Baron Courcel.] G

ENTLEMEN: Now we have come to the end of our task. We have done our best to accomplish it, without concealing from ourselves the difficulties which complicated it, nor the heavy responsibilities which it has imposed upon us. Selected from various nationalities, we have not considered ourselves the representatives of any one in particular, nor of any government or any human power, but, solely guided by our conscience and our reason, we have wished only to act as one of those councils of wise men, whose duties were so carefully defined by the old capitularies of France.

To assist us, we have had at our disposition a library of documents, compiled with extreme care, and in order that we might not lose our way among so many sources of information, men holding a high rank among the most learned jurists and eloquent orators of which the Old or New Worlds could boast have been willing so liberally to bestow upon us their advice.

During weeks and months our labors have been prolonged, and it constantly appeared that some new matter had risen before us and that some new problem pressed upon our attention.

To-day... we are assembled to inform you of the result of our labors, hoping with all our hearts that they may be profitable to man, and conformable to the designs of Him who rules his destiny. . . .

We have felt obliged to maintain intact the fundamental principles of that august law of nations, which extends itself like the vault of heaven above all countries, and which borrows the laws of nature herself to protect the peoples of the earth, one against another, by inculcating in them the dictates of mutual good will.

In the regulations which we were charged to draw up we have had to decide between conflicting rights and interests which it was difficult to reconcile. The Governments of the United States of America and Great Britain have promised to accept and execute our decisions. Our desire is that this voluntary engagement may not cause regret to either of them, though we have required of both sacrifices which they may, perhaps, regard as serious. This part of our work inaugurates great innovation. Hitherto, the nations were agreed to leave out of special legislation the vast domain of the seas, as in times of old, according to the poets, the earth itself was common to all men, who gathered its fruits at their will, without limitation or control. You know that even to-day, dreamers believe it possible to bring back humanity to that golden age. The sea, however, like the earth, has become small for men, who, like the hero, Alexander, and no less ardent for labor than he was for glory, feel confined in a world too narrow. Our work is a first attempt at a sharing of the products of the ocean, which has hitherto been undivided, and at applying a rule to things which escaped every other law but that of the first occupant. If this attempt succeeds, it will doubtless be followed by numerous imitations, until the entire planet, until the waters as well as the continents will have become the subject of a careful partition. Then, perhaps, the conception of property may change amongst men.

[Lord Hannen.] . . . Mr. de Courcel, I have to discharge a duty which gives me peculiar satisfaction. I have to express to you our high appreciation of the manner in which you have presided over our deliberations. The public has had the opportunity of witnessing the sagacity, the learning, and the courtesy with which you have guided the proceedings during the arguments. Your colleagues only can know how greatly those qualities have assisted us in our private conferences. Let me add, that our intimate relations with you have taught us to regard you with the warmest esteem and affection. Permit me to say that you have won in each of us an attached friend.

I must not conclude without an allusion to the remarkable occasion which has brought us together. We trust that the result will prove that we have taken part in a great historical transaction fruitful in good for the world. Two great nations, in submitting their differences to arbitration, have set an example which I doubt not will be followed from time to time by others, so that the scourge of war will be more and more repressed. Few can be so sanguine as to expect that all international quarrels will be speedily settled by arbitration, instead of by the dread arbitrament of

war; but each occasion on which the peaceful method is adopted will hasten the time when it will be the rule and not the exception.

One of our poets has said that every prayer for universal peace avails to expedite its coming.

We have done more than join in such a supplication; we may hope that we have been the humble instruments through whom an answer has been granted to that prayer which I doubt not ascends from the hearts of these two kindred nations, that peace may forever prevail between them. . . .

[Senator Morgan.] The arbitrators on the part of the United States most sincerely unite in the very happy expressions that have fallen from Lord Hannen, of grateful appreciation of the splendid hospitality of the French Government and people. . . .

If we should take a narrow view of the results of this arbitration, the United States would have a regret that the important judicial questions we have been considering were not stated in a broader form in the treaty between these great Powers. The opportunity was offered when the treaty was in process of formation to have presented in a more equitable light the rights of the nations to whose islands and coasts the fur-seals habitually resort for places of abode and shelter in the summer season; to control and protect them under the legal rules and intendments that apply universally to the animals that are classed as domestic, or domesticated animals, because of their usefulness to men.

My colleague and I concurred in the view that the treaty presented this subject for consideration in its broadest aspect. Our honorable colleagues, however, did not so construe the scope of the duty prescribed to the Tribunal by the treaty. They considered that these questions of the right of property and protection in respect to the fur-seals were to be decided upon the existing state of the law, and, finding no existing precedent in the international law, they did not feel warranted in creating one. As the rights claimed by the United States could only be supported by international law, in their estimation, and inasmuch as that law is silent on the subject, they felt that under the treaty they could find no legal foundation for the rights claimed that extended beyond the limits of the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

This ruling made it necessary to resort to the power conferred upon the Tribunal to establish, by the authority of both Governments, regulations for the preservation and protection of the fur-seals, to which the treaty relates. In this new and untried field of experiment, much embar

rassment was found in conflicting interests of an important character, and yet more difficulty in the uncertainty as to the facts upon which regulations could be based that would be at once just to those interests, and would afford to the fur-seals proper preservation and protection.

The United States will fully understand and appreciate those difficulties, and will accept the final award as the best possible result, under existing conditions. A very large measure of protection is secured by the regulations adopted by the Tribunal to the Alaskan herd of fur-seals; and the virtual repression of the use of firearms in pelagic sealing is an earnest and wise guaranty that those common interests may be pursued without putting in serious peril the peace of the two countries.

Senate Executive Documents, 53 Cong., 2 sess. (Washington, 1895), VII, pt. i, No. 177, pt. 1, pp. 71–73 passim.

179. The Olney Doctrine (1895)

BY SECRETARY RICHARD OLNEY

Olney was a prominent corporation lawyer in New England. He became attorneygeneral in Cleveland's cabinet in 1893, and later was made secretary of state. In 1895, when the administration took an active interest in the boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana, he sent to Bayard, the United States ambassador to Great Britain, the letter of instruction from which this extract is taken. The interpretation given to the Monroe Doctrine in Olney's letter was generally considered to enlarge the scope of that policy, and hence has been popularly called the Olney Doctrine. In 1896, acting in behalf of Venezuela, he negotiated a treaty with Great Britain which submitted the boundary question to arbitration. — Bibliography: D. C. Gilman, James Monroe, 269-280; Providence Public Library, Monthly Bulletin, II, 12-21; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 178. — For other expositions of American foreign policy, see Contemporaries, III, Nos. 84, 106, 147, 148; below, Nos. 192, 196.

IT

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T is not proposed, and for present purposes is not necessary, to enter into any detailed account of the controversy between Great Britain and Venezuela respecting the western frontier of the colony of British Guiana. The dispute is of ancient date and began at least as early as

1814. The claims of both parties, it must be conceded, are

of a somewhat indefinite nature. . . .

... Great Britain . . . apparently remained indifferent as to the exact area of the colony until 1840, when she commissioned an engineer, Sir Robert Schomburgk, to examine and lay down its boundaries.

... the exploitation of the Schomburgk line in 1840 was at once followed by the protest of Venezuela and by proceedings on the part of