1S97.J EDMUNDS — INTEEXATIONAL AKBITRATIOX. 323 



and western Asia. The United States, having no possible selfish 

 interest (just or unjust) in the question, might have been appealed 

 to in the person of their chief magistrate to decide, upon due hear- 

 ing and consideration, what were the respective rights of Greece 

 and of Turkey in Crete, and what were the respective adjustments 

 that ought to be made in respect of European interests in the pas- 

 sage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and in the passage 

 from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. Had the powers inter- 

 ested in this most difficult question been willing to submit to the 

 United States, or to any -other unbiased power, or to a tribunal 

 composed from several States, these perpetual and burning ques- 

 tions which continually involve not merely public war but animosi- 

 ties affecting large communities, unmeasured disaster of life and 

 peace and property might have been avoided. And so it is every- 

 where in all the frictions and differences that exist in the relations 

 of independent States. The fundamental difficulty is in their want 

 of confidence in each other. The Senate of the United States, I 

 am grieved to say, has very recently demonstrated this want of con- 

 fidence in any tribunal of an international character to which it 

 should be willing to refer differences even of a very narrow range 

 that might arise between ourselves and that power whose colonies 

 and dependencies are everywhere, and upon whose flag the sun 

 never sets. It may be that motives and considerations less broad 

 than those I have stated have led Senators, as it is reported, to 

 refuse assent to the recent arbitration treaty with Great Britain. 

 And, if this be so, there may be ground for the hope that at some 

 near day in the future this great nation will not be content to rest 

 itself alone on its physical strength, but upon the justice of its 

 cause determined by arbitration in many matters of difference that 

 may arise with another nation, and that in such a case it will be 

 willing to believe and to act upon the belief, that strength is not 

 the absolute test of justice and right, and that the strongest power 

 may sometimes be in the wrong ; and, therefore, be willing — strong 

 as it may be — to have its disputes determined by impartial interna- 

 tional judges, rather than by the arbitrament of war, with all its 

 miseries. 



