TOWER— THE JUDICIAL ASPECT— ARBITRATION. 299 



cording to such evidence as shall respectively be laid before them on 

 the part of the British government and of the United States. 



We have here the principles of arbitral adjustment fully devel- 

 oped at the outset, and we have employed it repeatedly in the same 

 manner through an exceedingly interesting and important series of 

 negotiations by which not only the St. Croix dispute was adjusted, 

 but the whole boundary line along our northern frontier has been 

 established, from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ; the northeastern 

 boundary by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton in 1842, — the line 

 from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains, and from thence to 

 the ocean. So that when the San Juan water boundary was finally 

 determined by the decision of the German Emperor, as arbitrator, 

 in 1872, General Grant was able to report to Congress in his annual 

 message, in December of that year, that: 



" This award confirms the United States in their claim to the important 

 islands lying between the Continent and Vancouver's Island, . . . and leaves 

 us, for the first time in the history of the United States as a nation, without 

 a question of disputed boundary between our territory and the possessions of 

 Great Britain on this continent." 



The success of this kind of negotiation, and perhaps a growing 

 habit of thought which resulted from it and attached itself to it, 

 very naturally increased the value, as it also extended the influence 

 upon men's minds, of the advantages to everybody concerned, that is 

 to be gained through the amicable adjustment of international dis- 

 putes where that course is possible. Thus it came to be generally 

 accepted, that arbitration is the most direct and efifective method of 

 settling such controversies, especially in cases where actual national 

 integrity or national honor is not at stake ; and the immediate efifect 

 of this was made evident by the greatly increased ratio of arbitral 

 adjustment, already noted, in the course of the nineteenth century, in 

 which substantially all the nations of the world have taken part. 



The high point was reached, however, one may safely say, in 

 considering all the circumstances, that the greatest political and moral 

 result that the world had ever seen to come out of an international 

 settlement was attained by the Geneva Tribunal in its composure of 

 the difficulties then existing between the United States and Great 

 Britain which had arisen out of the Alabama claims, both on account 



