342 VENEZUELA AND AFTER 



able.&quot; Treaties embodying this agreement were 

 concluded by the United States with Great 

 Britain and also with France. But the objec 

 tions that found their home in the American 

 Senate were too strong to be overcome. That 

 body gave its approval of the treaties only after 

 amending them so as to make each party for it 

 self the final judge as to whether a dispute was 

 justiciable, and further excluding altogether 

 from the provisions of the treaties several cat 

 egories of differences, notably those involving 

 the Monroe Doctrine. These amendments left 

 the treaties barren of all the advance that had 

 been hoped for toward general arbitration. 



Such was the situation when the centennial 

 of the Treaty of Ghent drew near. The sharp 

 exchange of notes about the Venezuelan bound 

 ary in 1895 had been followed by the estab 

 lishment of ostentatiously cordial diplomatic re 

 lations between the two great English-speaking 

 nations; and this had been followed in turn, 

 after the outbreak of the Spanish War, by 

 demonstrations of good feeling, both official 

 and unofficial, that were quite unprecedented 

 for warmth as well as for generality. The few 

 discordant notes in America over the fate of 

 the Boers, in Canada over the outcome of the 



