46 ARGUMENTS ON PRELIMINARY MOTIONS. 



not intrude them on this question, which is only as to the admissibility 

 of this one. 



Now, I say that the Treaty does not warrant it. 1 should have said 

 that, in pursuance of this provision, the United States threw those 

 Islands open to this Commission, furnished vessels, and extended every 

 possible facility. They went there together, — the four Commissioners, 

 as they should have done. They went at the same timej but they 

 declined the otter of the United iStates to furnish the same vessel, Mr. 

 Foster reminds me; so that they went on their expedition, and our 

 Commissioners made their Eeport, but the Islands were thrown open 

 either to themselves or with us. Then comes a Eeport which will 

 engage your attention at the proper time; and now comes this proposi- 

 tion, that after this is all over without any new investigation, for it will 

 not be pretended that they have been up there again, I think, — at a late 

 stage in the case they can sit down and make a new document which 

 shall become evidence in the Case? It would not be evidence, a large 

 part of it, if it come in at any time, if it is not invested with that char- 

 acter by the Treaty, and, unless it comes in according to the terms of 

 the Treaty, it does not acquire that character. I insist, therefore, in 

 respect to this document that, aside from the general objection to the 

 admission of any evidence at all, at this stage this is especially obnox- 

 ious because it is an attempt to exercise functions by the Commissioners 

 that had been exhausted under the terms of the Treaty by their pre- 

 vious Eeport, Lord Eosebery was struck, as I have said, when Mr. 

 Foster pointed out to him these Eeports that were to be the result of a 

 joint investigation and perhaps a joint Eeport. — "We have given you 

 ours; yours is to be made up in reply to ours," — "Oh! no," said Lord 

 Eosebery, "that is not so. Our Eeport was completed, and in the hands 

 of Her Majesty's Government on such a day"^ — some date in June, 

 I think, — "so that you are in error in supposing that the British Com- 

 missioners have availed themselves of the chance of examining your 

 Eeport before they made theirs." And he furnishes the Eeport. How 

 is it now? Are these men parties to this cause? Have they a perpet- 

 ual right to be heard, and, when thei-r conclusions are refuted by evi- 

 dence, to come in and swear over again or report over again, which is 

 the same thing in its effect, and gather more testimony and more hear- 

 say and conjecture and suspicion, until the thousand tongues of rumour 

 are exhausted, and still make it evidence. 



There is only one other point, and it is the last remark, I have to 

 trouble you with. One other ground for the admission of this evidence 

 was stated by the Agent of Her Majesty's Government in the commu- 

 nication to the Agent of the United States Government, which accom- 

 panied, I believe, the notice of this Eeport, that he thought the Tribunal 

 would be glad of any "trustworthy" information that would aid them 

 to deterndne the questions before them. " Trustworthy" in the estima- 

 tion of Her Majesty's Government is ex parte testimony which has been 

 concealed from the other side and no possibility of reply allowed ! Is 

 that trustworthy information? Through what back door of the Tri- 

 bunal is it expected that such evidence would make its appearance in 

 Court if it made its appearance at all? Trustworthy? If the Treaty 

 does not quite admit it, you must really accept it, because it is so 

 "trustworthy"! I cannot add anything to the force of that adjective, 

 and I will not try. How far we are entitled to comment upon the evi- 

 dence in the Counter Case that has thus come in against our protest, 

 and as we say utterly out of order will come up hereafter. We are now 

 engaged only in protesting that this addition should not be made to it. 



