204 WRIGHT— LIMITATIONS UPON NATIONAL POWERS. 



government, very carefully setting forth the question to be arbitrated, and 

 submit that convention to the Senate for its advice and consent. If I read 

 the Constitution of the United States and the Hague Convention aright, such 

 would be the only course permissible by those instruments." 



It may be observed that since the President has power under the 

 Constitution to settle claims of the United States against foreign 

 countries*'^ he unquestionably had power to submit the Pious Fund 

 claim to arbitration aside from the Hague Convention or from 

 the arbitration provision of the Mexican treaty of 1848 in force in 

 1903. '"^ Thus claims against Venezuela were submitted *to the 

 Hague Tribunal in 1903 and 1909 by executive protocols.®^ The 

 North Atlantic Fisheries arbitration with Great Britain, the remain- 

 ing Hague Case to which the United States has been a party, was, 

 however, submitted by a treaty,''^ though in this case treaty sub- 

 mission had been expressly required by the general arbitration 

 treaty with Great Britain of 1908,*^^ and the United States had made 

 express reservation to the Hague Convention of 1907 requiring that 

 submission to the Hague Court be by " general or special treaties of 

 arbitration." ^'^ 



The same question was raised with reference to the proposed 

 Hay arbitration treaties of 1905, providing for arbitration of " dif- 

 ferences " of a " legal nature " which do not affect the " vital 

 interests, the independence or the honor of the two contracting 

 states and do not concern the interests of third parties." These 

 treaties required conclusion of a " special agreement " defining the 

 matter in dispute, the powers of the arbitrators and the procedure. 

 The Senate was willing to consent only if the word "treaty" was 

 substituted for " agreement " and President Roosevelt refused to 

 submit the treaties thus amended thinking that a general arbitration 

 treaty was valueless if each specific submission required conclusion 



"5 Infra, sec. 171. 



66 Art. 21, Malloy, Treaties, p. 1117. 



67 Ibid., pp. 1870, 1889. 



68 Ibid., p. 835. 



69 Art. II, Ibid., p. 814. 



■^0 Ibid., p. 2247. See also Scott, ed., Reports of the Hague Conferences, pp. 

 xxvii, 903. 



