TOWER— THE JUDICIAL ASPECT— ARBITRATION. 301 



law ; " the massive grievance," as Mr. Sumner said, " under which 

 the country had suffered for years, and the painful sense of wrong 

 planted in the national heart." 



It must be looked upon as the triumph of international for- 

 bearance and of the willingness upon the part of the two nations 

 to compose amicably their dift'erences, which turned aside the menace 

 and reestablished peaceful relations at the moment when we were 

 upon the brink of war. Its influence and its lasting moral effect 

 were unquestionably greater, not only as between ourselves and 

 Great Britain but also in their direct bearing upon all the Powers of 

 the world, than could probably have been produced by any result 

 obtainable through the arbitrament of war. The most remarkable 

 instance in this connection is perhaps the agreement reached in regard 

 to the famous " Three Rules " of the Treaty of Washington relat- 

 ing to the " due diligence " that a neutral government is bound to 

 employ in preventing belligerent cruisers from arming and equipping 

 or from departing from its waters, which was the basis of the Amer- 

 ican case relating to the Alabama claims. For the British commis- 

 sioners were finally instructed to declare that they could not assent 

 to those rules as a statement of principles of international law in 

 force at the time when the Alabama claims arose, but that 



" Her Majesty's government, in order to evince its desire of strengthening 

 the friendly relations between the two countries and of making satisfactory 

 provision for the future, agreed that in deciding the questions between the 

 two countries arising out of those claims, the arbitrator should assume that 

 her Majesty's government had undertaken to act upon the principles set forth 

 in the rules in question." 



Thus it was possible to employ the method of arbitration in order 

 to prepare a common meeting-ground upon which the nations could 

 approach each other as equals, and treat without prejudice — each 

 recognizing the right of the other to present its claims as they ap- 

 peared from its own national point of view, and to seek justice. 



Probably nothing of the kind had ever influenced the world like 

 it before; and it marks a stage of progress from which the world 

 can never recede ; for arbitration is a growth which in the aft"airs 

 of men indicates the advancing steps of civilization. 



We have, of course, as the great example and proof of this, the 



