The reply of Great Britain to this communication consisted of two
despatches addressed by Lord Salisbury to the British ambassador
at Washington for submission to our Government. Though dated the
twenty-sixth day of November, 1895, these despatches were not presented
to our State Department until a number of days after the assemblage of
the Congress in the following month. In one of these communications
Lord Salisbury, in dealing with the Monroe Doctrine and the right or
propriety of our appeal to it in the pending controversy, declared:
“The dangers which were apprehended by President Monroe have no
relation to the state of things in which we live at the present day.”
He further declared:
But the circumstances with which President Monroe was
dealing and those to which the present American Government
is addressing itself have very few features in common. Great
Britain is imposing no “system” upon Venezuela and is not
concerning herself in any way with the nature of the political
institutions under which the Venezuelans may prefer to live.
But the British Empire and the Republic of Venezuela are
neighbors, and they have differed for some time past, and
continue to differ, as to the line by which their dominions are
separated. It is a controversy with which the United States
have no apparent practical concern.... The disputed frontier
of Venezuela has nothing to do with any of the questions dealt
with by President Monroe.
His Lordship, in commenting upon our position as developed in Mr.
Olney’s despatch, defined it in these terms: “If any independent
American state advances a demand for territory of which its neighbor
claims to be the owner, and that neighbor is a colony of an European
state, the United States have a right to insist that the European state
shall submit the demand and its own impugned rights to arbitration.”
I confess I should be greatly disappointed if I believed that the
history I have attempted to give of this controversy did not easily and
promptly suggest that this definition of our contention fails to take
into account some of its most important and controlling features.
Speaking of arbitration as a method of terminating international
differences, Lord Salisbury said:
It has proved itself valuable in many cases, but it is not free
from defects which often operate as a serious drawback on
its value. It is not always easy to find an arbitrator who is
competent and who, at the same time, is wholly free from bias;
and the task of insuring compliance with the award when it is
made is not exempt from difficulty. It is a mode of settlement
of which the value varies much according to the nature of the
controversy to which it is applied and the character of the
litigants who appeal to it. Whether in any particular case
it is a suitable method of procedure is generally a delicate
and difficult question. The only parties who are competent
to decide that question are the two parties whose rival
contentions are in issue. The claim of a third nation which
is unaffected by the controversy to impose this particular
procedure on either of the two others cannot be reasonably
justified and has no foundation in the law of nations.
Immediately following this statement his Lordship again touched upon
the Monroe Doctrine for the purpose of specifically disclaiming its
acceptance by her Majesty’s Government as a sound and valid principle.
He says:
It must always be mentioned with respect, on account of the
distinguished statesman to whom it is due and the great nation
who have generally adopted it. But international law is founded
on the general consent of nations; and no statesman, however
eminent, and no nation, however powerful, are competent to
insert into the code of international law a novel principle
which was never recognized before, and which has not since been
accepted by the Government of any other country. The United
States have a right, like any other nation, to interpose in any
controversy by which their own interests are affected; and they
are the judge whether those interests are touched and in what
measure they should be sustained. But their rights are in no
way strengthened or extended by the fact that the controversy
affects some territory which is called American.
In concluding this despatch Lord Salisbury declared that her
Majesty’s Government “fully concur with the view which President
Monroe apparently entertained, that any disturbance of the existing
territorial distribution in that hemisphere by any fresh acquisitions
on the part of any European state would be a highly inexpedient change.
But they are not prepared to admit that the recognition of that
expediency is clothed with the sanction which belongs to a doctrine of
international law. They are not prepared to admit that the interests
of the United States are necessarily concerned in any frontier dispute
which may arise between any two of the states who possess dominions in
the Western Hemisphere; and still less can they accept the doctrine
that the United States are entitled to claim that the process of
arbitration shall be applied to any demand for the surrender of
territory which one of those states may make against another.”
The other despatch of Lord Salisbury, which accompanied the one upon
which I have commented, was mainly devoted to a statement of facts
and evidence on Great Britain’s side in the boundary controversy; and
in making such statement his Lordship in general terms designated the
territory to which her Majesty’s Government was entitled as being
embraced within the lines of the most extreme claim which she had at
any time presented. He added:
A portion of that claim, however, they have always been willing
to waive altogether; in regard to another portion they have
been and continue to be perfectly ready to submit the question
of their title to arbitration. As regards the rest, that which
lies within the so-called Schomburgk line, they do not consider
that the rights of Great Britain are open to question. Even
within that line they have on various occasions offered to
Venezuela considerable concessions as a matter of friendship
and conciliation and for the purpose of securing an amicable
settlement of the dispute. If, as time has gone on, the
concessions thus offered have been withdrawn, this has been the
necessary consequence of the gradual spread over the country of
British settlements, which Her Majesty’s Government cannot in
justice to the inhabitants offer to surrender to foreign rule.