APPENDIX IV VENEZUELAN CORRESPONDENCE, UNPUBLISHED [THIS appendix consists principally of letters which Olney kept in a personal file and which therefore have not found their way into the State Department's published collections of diplomatic correspondence. The full text of his original Venezuelan dispatch (No. 804, of July 20, 1895), of Lord Salisbury's reply, and of the President's special message about Venezuela may be consulted conveniently in "Foreign Relations of the United States," for 1895, vol. 1, pages 542-76.] Note as to Secretary Bayard's Venezuelan Dispatch of The earnest protest about the Venezuelan situation which Secretary Bayard sent to the American Minister in London (Phelps) on February 17, 1888, should not be allowed to occupy a false relation to the record any longer. So far as the present writer is aware, attention has never been drawn to the fact that it was not delivered to the British Foreign Office. The dispatch was printed in the State Department's official volume, "Foreign Relations" for 1888, as if it had been transmitted. Olney seems to have had no misgivings about its delivery when he quoted it in his No. 804.1 Cleveland dwelt on it in his later history of the Venezuelan affair,2 but it appears from an unpublished letter in the files of the State Department that when Mr. Phelps received this in London he wrote a letter in which he said: "It seems obvious, therefore, that no further interference with that subject [Venezuela] by our Government would be either useful or consistent with its character, unless it is prepared to espouse and maintain the cause of Venezuela as against Great Britain. This is doubtless far from your intention, however 1 Foreign Relations, 1895, Part 1, 550. • Presidential Problems, 243 et seq. 'Phelps to Bayard, No. 706, March 28, 1888. friendly the feeling that happily exists between the Republic of Venezuela and the United States. . . . Quite concurring in the propriety of your instruction on this subject, No. 791, of February 17, 1888, and fully intending to follow it whenever the opportunity is offered, I do not understand it to go beyond the expression to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the gratification an amicable settlement by arbitration or otherwise between Great Britain and Venezuela would afford the United States Government, and its readiness to do anything properly in its power [to] assist [to] that end." Bayard apparently acquiesced in this without comment. But later, when he himself was standing in Phelps's shoes and was instructed to deliver the dispatch of July 20, 1895 (No. 804), he looked the matter up and wrote to Olney (August 9, 1895), saying, “I am not aware, however, that such an opportunity was ever availed of, nor that in any way was the instruction of the State Department ever communicated to Her Majesty's Government." 1 The files of the State Department are so arranged that it is difficult to examine together all the items of a long-drawn-out negotiation. Before Secretary Root's time the difficulties were, it is said, much greater. Phelps's letter might easily have been overlooked. The chief interest of Bayard's dispatch thus lies in the impression which may have been made upon the minds of Olney and Cleveland by the supposition that it had been delivered to and ignored by Great Britain. But the importance of even that should not be exaggerated, for it is clear that they based their policies upon the Venezuelan situation as a whole rather than upon any single document. (H. J.) No. 492 SIR: Bayard to Olney EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES On the 1st instant, I had the honor to receive your further instruction on the same subject (No. 804, dated 1 See letter which follows. July 20), and, as supplementary thereto, the Acting Secretary, Mr. Adee's No. 806, dated July 24. I need not say that this important paper has commanded my instant and careful attention, commensurate with the magnitude of the interests which may be involved, and that, as soon as it was possible, I possessed myself of its contents, had it copied here, and an interview was arranged with the Marquis of Salisbury, who did not return to London until Wednesday, the 7th instant, when, in accordance with notes exchanged between us on the subject, I called upon him at the Foreign Office. As introductory to the communication, and to impress upon his Lordship the long and steady continuance of effort on the part of the United States to induce a resort to mutual amicable and voluntary arbitration by Great Britain and Venezuela for the ascertainment of their true and just boundary line in Guiana, I recalled an instruction from the then Secretary of State (Mr. Bayard, No. 508, of February 17, 1888) to the then Minister of the United States at London (Mr. Phelps) in which the earnest and friendly advocacy of the United States in favor of "an amicable final and honorable settlement" of the dispute between the contestants was recited, and an expression of the "necessarily grave disquietude" which had been caused to the United States by the sudden unexplained increase of the claims for territory by the authorities of British Guiana. This instruction had been accompanied by a map of the region in dispute, which had been communicated to the United States by the Venezuelan Representative in Washington. And the instruction, together with a copy of the map, had been duly published in the volume of the Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States for the year 1888, at page 698, etc. Upon reviewing the documentary history of the subject, I could find no trace whatever of any reply from Her Majesty's Government, nor any subsequent publication of the reply, to the State Department, by the United States Min ister. I did, however, discover, on the files of this Embassy, a dispatch from Mr. Phelps, No. 706, dated March 28, 1888, acknowledging the reception of my No. 791,1 of February previous, and stating his intention "fully to follow it, whenever the opportunity is offered." I am not aware, however, that such opportunity was ever availed of, nor that in any way was the instruction of the State Department ever communicated to Her Majesty's Government. There were other questions pending for settlement at that time between Great Britain and the United States, the pressure of which tended somewhat to obscure the VenezuelanGuiana boundary from instant consideration, and I therefore drew his Lordship's attention to the instruction above referred to, and stated its publication in the regular volume of the State Department's Correspondence for 1888 - of which, of course, a copy is in the Foreign Office. In reading Mr. Phelps's acknowledgment of my No. 508 of February 17, 1888, you will perceive his uncertainty as to the wisdom or expediency of renewing our recommendations for a settlement by arbitration between the two powers. I also asked the attention of his Lordship to the reply (his own) of Her Majesty's Government to Mr. Phelps, dated February 22, 1887, in which the declination of the offer of the United States (which had been made in December, 1886) was expressly placed "upon the attitude which General Guzman Blanco has now taken up in regard to the questions at issue, which precludes Her Majesty's Government from submitting these questions at the present moment to the arbitration of any third power" (the italics are mine), and the same note contains the statement that an offer to mediate in the questions at issue had been received from another quarter and declined "on the same grounds." As the grounds of declination in 1887, therefore, had been limited to objections personal to General Guzman Blanco, and "his attitude," and being confined to "the present 1 In 1888 the editor of Foreign Relations confused his readers by printing two different serial numbers over the dispatches. Thus Bayard refers to the same document as "my No. 508" and "my No. 791.” moment," I suggested that with the absence of General Guzman Blanco and the lapse of time the grounds for the objections of Her Majesty's Government to consenting to arbitration might be considered as materially diminished or wholly removed. I then proceeded to communicate the grave instruction with which I was charged, and having fully conveyed it, I placed as directed by you in his Lordship's hands a full and true copy thereof. At the conclusion of my reading and statement, his Lordship made courteous expression of his thanks, and expressed regret and surprise that it had been considered necessary to present so far-reaching and important a principle and such wide and profound policies of international action in relation to a subject so comparatively small. That to make proper reply to so able and profound an argument, on a subject so important in its relations, would necessarily involve a great deal of labor, and possibly of time, both of which would be certainly bestowed. That he would at once submit the legal propositions thus propounded to the law officers of his Government and have the allegations of fact carefully examined. He said it was his desire that Great Britain should be perfectly just in the matter, but that arbitration should only apply to cases where there was a real basis of justice and right, and was not demandable for any claim that could be set up, for otherwise a nation might be called upon to arbitrate its very existence. That it was evident the questions raised by the instruction might give rise to a long and difficult discussion and much controversy, but that an answer would be made. I enclose herewith a copy of a note addressed by me, on the day following this interview, to Lord Salisbury, in which reference is made to the question of official authority attachable to the two publications, the "Statesman's Year-Book" and the "Colonial Office List" which his Lordship stated were published only for the personal profit of individuals and not by Government authority. |