4U ARGUMENTS ON PRELIMINARY MOTIONS. 



also that the American Commissioners' Eeport was included, as it should 

 have been, in our Lase. The sei^arate Keport made to our Grovernuient 

 by the American Commissioners was furnished, but the British Kei)ort 

 was withlield. We pointed out in tliis letter the gross injustice of 

 having' a Keport made up by the British Commissioners after having 

 been furnished with the Keport of the American Commissioners as the 

 result of their joint investigation. Lord Kosebery was sutliciently 

 struck with the force of those considerations to state, or we should not 

 otherwise have known it, that the British Keport had been prepared in 

 ])oiut of fact and ])laced in the hands of their Government before our 

 Case had been received, so that we were in error in supposing, what 

 we were justified in supposing until we were otlierwise informed, that 

 the British Keport was made up after inspection of ours. Then he con- 

 ceded so much as this, that he furnished us at tliat time with a copy of 

 tlie British Commissioners' Keport, being willing to treat it as a part of 

 their Case as we had offered, because in this communication we had 

 said "If you will furnish your evidence now, we will accept it as ])art 

 of the Case; the time is past, — but we do not stand upon that." They 

 sent us the British Keport, saying that they would treat it, as we had 

 proposed to do, as i)art of the Case; but he declined to accept the views 

 of the United States Government as to the other questions. 



Then the question arose what the Government of the United States 

 should do, whether it should go on in the face of the assertion of the 

 other side that it was proposed to put in theii" whole testimony when 

 we could not answer it, nor even deal with it (except the British Com- 

 missioners' report), or whether the Arbitration should terminate then 

 and there. The question may be asked why it was not terminated. 

 That is not for me to answer. If I had been in control of the poMcy of 

 the Government, instead merely of the conduct of this case, it would 

 have terminated. I never would have consented to a proposition that 

 seemed to me gross in its injustice and humiliating to the Government 

 that submitted to it. In my opinion to go on upon such a proposal 

 with a proceeding that jjrofessedly in its theory, in its object, was to 

 dispose by friendly Arbitration of questions that had arisen between 

 two nations, of whom neither had the right or desire to suppose that 

 the other wished for anything but fair dealing and fair discussion, was 

 not to be thought of. But wiser Counsels undoubtedly than mine pre- 

 vailed and the Government of the United States decided to go on. 

 They did not aecei)t, acquiesce in, or agree to the theory of the British 

 Government. In the last letter of Mr. Secretary Foster will be found 

 stated with great clearness and precision the attitude of his Govern- 

 ment. 



I state the substance without taking up your time to read it. It was 

 in effect that to revoke and stop the Arbitration was in the estimation 

 of the Government calamitous. They thought perhaps that in receiv- 

 ing the Britisli Keport they had obtained most of the evidence on the 

 other side, perha])s substantially all the evidence, and above all, that 

 they would stand in the judgment of the Arbitrators at last as to what 

 Evidence was legitimately before them under the provisions of this 

 Treaty, and what was not. — And they were willing to trust themselves 

 to the judgment of the Tribunal, and to reserve the objections which 

 they still insisted upon to that mode of trial until the case had come to 

 be heard. 



Senator Morgan, — Did the British Government protest against 

 putting in the Keport at the time? 



