806 



VENEZUELA. 



tional usage, and one apparently limited in its ap- 

 plication to the period between October, 1886, when 

 the SchomburgK line was first proclaimed, and 

 June, 1887, when the Governor of British Guiana, 

 by express instruction of the home Government, 

 cautioned all persons applying for mining licenses 

 and concessions that the land might become a part 

 of the Venezuelan territory. In the opinion of the 

 United States Government the bona fides of the 

 British settler was quite immaterial ; it is the bona 

 fides of either government that is important, not 

 that of individuals. If British subjects had settled 

 on Venezuelan territory having every ground to 

 believe it British, such grounds must have ema- 

 nated from the British Government, not from 

 Venezuela, whose claims were notorious, and it is a 

 matter between them and their own Government. 

 Mr. Olney proposed to add one or more members to 

 the commission, so that it must reach a result ; to 

 empower it to report upon all the facts necessary to 

 the decision of the boundary controversy ; and 

 strike out altogether the proviso by which the 

 boundary line as drawn by the arbitral tribunal 

 was not to include territory bona fide occupied by 

 British subjects or Venezuelan citizens prior to 

 Jan. 1, 1887, or substitute for it the following : 

 " Provided, however, that in fixing such line, if 

 territory of one party be found in the occupation 

 of subjects or citizens of the other party, such 

 weight and effect shall be given to such occupation 

 as reason, justice, the rules of international law, 

 and the equities of the particular case may appeal- 

 to require." On July 3 Lord Salisbury wrote to 

 Sir Julian Pauncefote that it appeared to him to be 

 a fundamental condition that the boundary line 

 should not operate upon territory bona fide occu- 

 pied by a British subject, and therefore he still in- 

 sisted on withholding from the scope of the sug- 

 gested arbitration all those portions of the disputed 

 territory that are in effective British occupation, 

 and considered that the line should be deflected in 

 every such case so as to make such territory a part 

 of British Guiana. He pointed out that the Vene- 

 zuelan claim extended as far as the Essequibo ; that 

 it covered two thirds of the territory of British Gui- 

 ana; and that it impeached titles that had been un- 

 questioned for many generations. In the view of 

 the British Government, where the matter was of 

 great importance and involved rights that belong 

 to a considerable population, special precautions 

 were necessary to prevent a miscarriage of justice, 

 which were not required where the title of unoccu- 

 pied territory alone was at issue. He therefore 

 proposed to except these districts from the jurisdic- 

 tion of the arbitration tribunal, though it could deal 

 adequately with disputed claims to territory that 

 was unoccupied, but he did not intend by that to 

 ask the United States to prejudge any questions 

 which had been raised or might be raised in respect 

 to the ownership of settled districts. On July 13 Mr. 

 Olney wrote to Sir Julian Pauncefote that Lord 

 Salisbury's proposals seemed to contemplate not a 

 complete boundary line, but a part or parts of such 

 line, namely, such part or parts, as might divide 

 uninhabited districts. Mr. Olney did not regard the 

 Venezuelan claims as an insuperable obstacle to un- 

 rest ricted arbitration, but he considered Lord Salis- 

 bury's objection that the Venezuelan claim im- 

 peached titles that had been unquestioned for many 

 generations as undoubtedly of a most weighty char- 

 acter, and with reference to this he asked : " Can it 

 be assumed that her Majesty's Government would 

 submit to unrestricted arbitration the whole of the 

 territory in dispute, provided it be a rule of the ar- 

 bitration, embodied in the arbitral agreement, that 

 territory which has been in the exclusive, notorious. 

 and actual use and occupation of either party for 



even two generations, or say for sixty years, shall 

 be held by the arbitrators "to be the territory of 

 such party? In other words, will her Majesty's 

 Government consent to the unrestricted arbitration 

 of all the territory in controversy with a period for 

 the acquisition of a title by prescription fixed by 

 agreement of the parties in advance at sixty years >.'" 

 Lord Salisbury would not agree to such a definition 

 of settled districts or to unrestricted arbitration 

 until Mr. Olney made it clear that the United 

 States Government regarded it as a condition *int>. 

 qua non, and that unless England agreed to arbi- 

 trate on all the territory in dispute there would be 

 no settlement. Then Lord Salisbury accepted Mr. 

 Olney's proposal, but sought to shorten the term of 

 prescription, suggesting fourteen years, next twen- 

 ty-one, and then forty. Mr. Olney finally accepted 

 fifty years as a compromise. 



After diplomacy had arranged a basis for settling 

 the Venezuelan dispute by arbitration the Ameri- 

 can Boundary Commission decided to formulate no 

 report while such a mode of settlement was in pros- 

 pect, but to continue meanwhile its deliberations 

 and the preparation and orderly arrangement of 

 the many valuable maps, reports, and documents 

 t hat had been procured and used in the course of 

 its labors. 



Arbitration Treaty. The heads of an arbitra- 

 tion treaty between Great Britain and Venezuela 

 were formulated, and the agreement was signed in 

 Washington on Nov. 12, 1896, by Secretary Olney 

 and Sir Julian Pauncefote. On the basis of the 

 rules and conditions of the arbitration thus agreed 

 upon a treaty was concluded between Great Britain 

 and Venezuela and signed by Sir Julian Pauncefote 

 and .lose Andrade. The treaty provided that an 

 arbitral tribunal shall be immediately appointed to 

 determine the boundary line between the colony of 

 British Guiana and the United States of Venezuela, 

 to consist of 5 members, of whom 2 on the part of 

 Great Britain were nominated by the Judicial Com- 

 mittee of the British Privy Council, namely, Baron 

 Herschell and Sir Richard Henn Collins; 2 on the 

 part of Venezuela, of whom 1 was nominated by the 

 President of Venezuela, namely, Melville Weston 

 Fuller, Chief Justice of the United State Supreme 

 Court; 1 by the justices of the Supreme Court of 

 the United States, namely, Justice David Josiah 

 Brewer: and a fifth jurist to be selected by the 4 

 so nominated, or in the event of their failure to 

 agree within three months from the date of the ex- 

 change of ratifications, then by the King of Sweden 

 and Norway, the jurist so selected to be the presi- 

 dent of the tribunal. The tribunal shall investigate 

 and ascertain the extent of the territories belonging 

 to or that might lawfully be claimed by the United 

 Netherlands or by the Kingdom of Spain respec- 

 tively at the time of the acquisition by Great Britain 

 of the colony of British Guiana, and shall deter- 

 mine the boundary line between the colony of Brit- 

 ish Guiana and the United States of Venezuela. In 

 deciding the matters submitted, the arbitrators shall 

 ascertain all facts which they deem necessary to a 

 decision of the controversy, and shall be governed 

 by certain rules agreed upon by the high contract- 

 ing parties, and such principles of international law 

 as are deemed applicable and are not inconsistent 

 with these rules. The agreed rules are : (1) Adverse 

 holding or prescription during a period of fifty years 

 shall make a good title. The arbitrators may deem 

 exclusive political control of a district as well as 

 actual settlement thereof sufficient to constitute ad- 

 verse holding or to make a title by prescription. 

 (2) The arbitrators may recognize and give effect 

 to rights and claims resting on any other ground 

 whatever, valid according to international law, and 

 on any principles of international law which the 



