DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS. 



255 



would lead to the restoration of friendly rela- 

 tions between the two nations. 



The new union of the Rigsdag was opened 

 on October 6th. The " United Left " of the 

 Folkething called upon the ministry "to re- 

 move (by its resignation) the impediments 

 which have accrued to the prosperous devel- 

 opment of the commonwealth out of the con- 

 tinuing want of agreement between the Gov- 

 ernment and the representation of the people." 

 The President of the Council replied that at 

 the express wish of the King all the ministers 

 would remain in oflSce, and that the Folke- 

 thing, if it carried out its threat and refused to 

 vote the budget, would be dissolved. As the 

 Folkething adhered to its threat, and refused 

 to vote the budget, it was dissolved on Octo- 

 ber 18th, and new elections ordered to take 

 place on November 14th. At the new elec- 

 tion the " United Left " was again successful, 

 electing 53 of its candidates against 48 of all 

 parties. All its leaders, in particular Krabbe 

 the President of the dissolved Folkething, 

 Hansen, and Berg, were reglected. The new 

 Folkething met on December 4th, when the 

 United Left " rejected the former president 

 and vice-presidents, Krabbe, J. A. Hansen, 

 and Hogsbro. An address to the King, ex- 

 pressing the wish that " the administration of 

 the country be changed, was moved by Deputy 

 Sibjorring and adopted by 59 against 32 votes 

 The President of the Folkething, Krabbe, pre- 

 sented it to the King, who replied that he 

 would confer on the subject with his ministers 

 DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE AND 

 FOREIGN RELATIONS. The correspond- 

 ence concerning the foreign relations of the 

 United States is contained in the various pa- 

 pers sent to the Houses of Congress, and in 

 the documents accompanying the annual mes- 

 sage of the President at the opening of the 

 first session of the Forty-third Congress. The 

 latter are arranged in two volumes, making 

 1,442 pages. 



ARGENTINE REPCBLIO. The following ex- 

 tract from the message of President Sarmiento 

 to Congress seems to furnish a striking proof 

 of the wisdom which dictated the establish- 

 ment of the principle that war, with its long 

 train of concomitant evils, may bo honorably 

 avoided in most, if not all cases, by reference 

 of disputed questions between nations to the 

 award of distinguished parties : 

 A discussion is pending with Chili upon the Straits 

 .Magellan, and a recent circumstance which might 

 have endangered a peaceable solution of the ques- 

 lon was amicably disposed of the very moment it 

 ssnmed a disagreeable character. Whatever im- 

 portance may be given to this subject, the govern- 

 ments of Chili and of this republic, in prevision of 

 any serious difficulty, have established by treaty 

 that the question of boundaries should be submitted 



that the question es sou e sumtte 



to arbitration in the event of a failure by diplomatic 

 means. This honorable method of settling interna- 

 tional disputes was adopted only o short time ngo bv 

 :w., of the most powerful nations of the earth, and 

 euould be imitated, as it was applauded, by all others. 

 AUSTHIA HUNGARY. On March 6, 1872, 



Count von Beust, the Austrian ambassador in 

 London, writes to the Austrian Minister of 

 Foreign Aflairs, Count Andrassy, relative to 

 the three rules of war embraced in the Wash- 

 ington Treaty of 1871, as follows: 



England has agreed (Article VI. of the treaty of 

 8th May, 1871) to acknowledge three of the rules 

 proposed by the Government of the United States 

 the immediate object of which is to specifically de- 

 fine the duties of the neutral power during the naval 

 war. 1 he importance and extensive bearing of these 

 rules are clearly manifest. 



Oil the other side, the British Government, with 

 ie admission of the application of the stipulated 

 rules of law to the case of the Alabama, has joined 

 the express protest against the position stated 

 3rem, that these rules were internationally oper- 

 tiye at the time of the origin of the Alabama 

 claims. Both powers have further agreed that, in 

 the decision of the disputed question, the interna- 

 tional principles that have hitherto been in force 

 may be employed only so far as they do not derogate 

 from the three new rules. Finally, England and 

 America have agreed to consider the newly-settled 

 fundamental principles of law, not only as binding 

 upon themselves in future, but have agreed to brini 

 them to the knowledge of the other navalpowers with 

 the formal invitation to adopt them. These move- 

 ments, when they confirm on one side the impor- 

 tance of the new rules of law, present also the proof 

 that the treaty-contracting powers acknowledge in 

 them a completely new principle of law. 



Next to the prominent chief significance of this 

 present novelty in maritime law, also its practical 

 extent and capability of further expansion deserve 

 to be well considered. In this view the history of 

 the \\ ashmgtou treaty offers a very instructive illus- 

 tration. And even in the case that the Geneva arbi- 

 tration tribunal should not reach the desired aim, 

 the theoretical and practical significance of the Wash- 

 ington neutrality rules, viewed from a general inter- 

 national stand-point, ought not to be under-estimated 

 1 he latter are manifestly in favor of the belligerent 

 >owers. In the same degree as they narrow this 

 sphere of rights belonging to neutrals toward the 

 belligerents, they extend that of the contending 

 parties as against those who stand aside from the 

 CODt u St u rurther > the pewly-imposed duties are so 

 much the more oppressive, inasmuch as the respon- 

 ihty and obligation to indemnity, arising from 

 their non-performance by the neutrals, may be re- 

 garded as becoming extensive and comprehensive in 

 the highest degree possible. 



In the interest of the powers there exists unde- 

 niably the increasing, if not universal, acknowledg- 

 ment of the principle that forms the actual founda- 

 tion of a correct position of neutrals, namely, the 

 tree and untrammeled activity to be exercised by the 

 state individually, especially in the direction of un- 

 limited protection of its own commercial interests. 

 The fact of a war, originating quite independently 

 of the will of a neutral state, between two other 

 powers, should impose upon the first the least possi- 

 siule limitation of its national rights, as well as the 

 least possible measure of duties, in regard to the 

 condition of war created without its own instrumen- 

 tality. This tendency is in harmony with the opin- 

 ion existing largely, if not wholly, in all civilized 

 countries, and recently practical attempts to fairly 

 comply with the same have not been wanting 

 Everybody remembers the efforts made at the Pans 

 Peace Congress to protect the rights of neutrals 

 against the unjust violence of belligerent maritime 

 powers. Let me be permitted to point to an appro- 

 priate example in the historv of recent time. This 

 the dispute between the Foreign Office and the 

 ISortri-Gorman ambassador in London, in regard to 

 the privileges of the neutral commerce, durfnir the 

 war of 1870 and 1871. In this case it was the Eng- 



