280 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-XXI 



Provision seventh: The signatory powers agree to 

 share among them the expenses pertaining to the admin 

 istration of the central office and the council of adminis 

 tration ; but the expenses incident to every arbitration, in 

 cluding the remuneration of the arbiters, shall be equally 

 borne by the contesting powers. 



From a theoretical point of view, I prefer to this our 

 American plan of a tribunal permanently in session : the 

 judges, in every particular case, to be selected from this. 

 Thus would be provided a court of any odd number be 

 tween three and nine, as the contesting powers may desire. 

 But from the practical point of view, even though the Eus- 

 sian plan of requiring the signatory powers to send to the 

 tribunal a multitude of smaller matters, such as those con 

 nected with the postal service, etc., is carried out, the great 

 danger is that such a court, sitting constantly as we pro 

 pose, would, for some years, have very little to do, and 

 that soon we should have demagogues and feather-brained 

 &quot;reformers&quot; ridiculing them as &quot;useless,&quot; &quot;eating their 

 heads off,&quot; and &quot;doing nothing&quot;; that then demagogic 

 appeals might lead one nation after another to withdraw 

 from an arrangement involving large expense apparently 

 useless ; and in view of this latter difficulty I am much in 

 clined to think that we may, under our amended in 

 structions, agree to support, in its essential features as 

 above given, the British proposal, and, with some reser 

 vations, the code proposed by the Eussians. 



Among the things named by the Eussians as subjects 

 which the agreeing powers must submit to arbitration, 

 are those relating to river navigation and international 

 canals; and this, in view of our present difficulties in 

 Alaska and in the matter of the Isthmus Canal, we can 

 hardly agree to. During the morning Sir Julian came 

 in and talked over our plan of arbitration as well as his 

 own and that submitted by Eussia. He said that he had 

 seen M. de Staal, and that it was agreed between them 

 that the latter should send Sir Julian, at the first moment 

 possible, an amalgamation of the Eussian and British 



