ARGUMENT OP JOHN 8. BWABT. 1317 



* 



which you will communicate a copy to Mr. Bayard, together with a 

 copy ox the present dispatch." 



That was a document setting out the Canadian contention with 

 reference to commercial privileges. 



" With regard to Mr. Bayard's observations in the same note 

 [page 774] respecting a customs circular and a warning issued by 

 the Canadian authorities, and dated respectively the 7th May and 

 the 5th March last, I have to acquaint you that these documents have 

 now been amended so as to bring them into exact accordance with 

 treaty stipulations; and I inclose, for communication to the United 

 States Government, printed copies of these documents as amended." 



The language is almost a little sarcastic there, remembering that 

 the amendment had been merely to reduce the generality of these 

 documents, from their application to all nations, to specific applica- 

 tion to the United States. When Lord Rosebery says that the docu- 

 ments have been amended so as to bring them into exact accordance 

 with treaty stipulations, he really meant there were no treaties with 

 other nations which would have authorised the form of the circular 

 hi its original form. 



The letter, the members will see, is addressed, not to the United 

 States, for in that case it would not have been in that form, but was to 

 Sir Lionel West. The curtness of it is to be explained by the fact 

 that on the same day Lord Rosebery wrote more at length to Sir 

 Lionel West upon the same subject a letter which will be found at 

 United States Case Appendix, p. 809. I am not going to read it. I 

 merely cite it so that the members of the Tribunal may refer to it if 

 desired. 



Further explanation can be given of the curtness of this reply of 

 Lord Rosebery 's by saying that the subject of commercial privileges 

 had been a matter of correspondence over a considerable period of 

 time; that Lord Rosebery had very clearly, in four previous letters, 

 indicated what his views were; and that when it is now brought up 

 in this particular form he shortly disposed of it in this almost sar- 

 castic way by saying that the circular has been brought into exact 

 accordance with the treaty stipulations. 



Lord Rosebery's former letters are of the 24th May, in British 

 Case Appendix, p. 304; the 29th May, British Case Appendix, p. 

 310; the 2nd June, British Case Appendix, p. 317; and the 23rd 

 July, British Case Appendix, p. 341. 



I pass now from that subject, I hope I have been able to make it 

 dear, an d I pass it with the observation, that (if I am right) I may 

 fairly say that I do not think any blame at all attaches to the 

 draughtsman of the Argument, because the correspondence is ex- 

 tremely tangled, and it resulted (if I am right) from the confusion 

 of two sets of correspondence, and from the taking of extracts from 

 those two sets, without observing that they were two sets. 



