THE MONROE DOCTRINE 431 . ; 



wholly obsolete. If, however, it were not condemnable as a relic 

 of barbarism and a crime in itself, so one-sided a contest could 

 not be invited nor even accepted by Great Britain without dis- 

 tinct disparagement to her character as a civilized state. Great 

 Britain, however, assumes no such attitude. On the contrary, 

 she both admits that there is a controversy and that arbitration 

 should be resorted to for its adjustment. But, while up to that 

 point her attitude leaves nothing to be desired, its practical effect 

 is completely nullified by her insistence that the submission shall 

 cover but a part of the controversy that, as a condition of arbi- r . ' 

 trating her right to a part of the disputed territory, the remainder 

 shall be turned over to her. If it were possible to point to a 

 boundary which both parties had ever agreed or assumed to be 

 such either expressly or tacitly, the demand that territory con- 

 ceded by such line to British Guiana should be held not to be in 

 dispute might rest upon a reasonable basis. But there is no such 

 line. The territory which Great Britain insists shall be ceded to / 

 her as a condition of arbitrating her claim to other territory has * 

 never been admitted to belong to her. It has always and con- 

 sistently been claimed by Venezuela. 



Upon what principle except her feebleness as a nation is 

 she to be denied the right of having the claim heard and passed 

 upon by an impartial tribunal? No reason nor shadow of reason 

 appears in all the voluminous literature of the subject. " It is to ./ 

 be so because I will it to be so" seems to be the only justification 

 Great Britain offers. It is, indeed, intimated that the British 

 claim to this particular territory rests upon an occupation, which, 

 whether acquiesced in or not, has ripened into a perfect title by 

 long continuance. But what prescription affecting territorial 

 rights can be said to exist as between sovereign states ? Or, if 

 there is any, what is the legitimate consequence? It is not that 

 all arbitration should be denied, but only that the submission 

 should embrace an additional topic, namely, the validity of the 

 asserted prescriptive title either in point of law or in point of 

 fact. No different result follows from the contention that as 

 matter of principle Great Britain cannot be asked to submit and 

 ought not to submit to arbitration her political and sovereign 

 rights over territory. This contention, if applied to the whole 

 or to a vital part of the possessions of a sovereign state, need not 

 be controverted. To hold otherwise might be equivalent to hold- 

 ing that a sovereign state was bound to arbitrate its very existence. 



But Great Britain has herself shown in various instances that 

 the principle has no pertinency when either the interests or the 

 territorial area involved are not of controlling magnitude and her 



