occupation of either party for sixty years should be held to belong to such party. Later on that suggestion was accepted by Lord Salisbury as offering a solution of what had up to that time been an insuperable objection to the proposed arbitration. The summer vacation intervened and when Sir Julian and myself got back to Washington in the fall we went at the matter again in the most diligent and vigorous fashion with the result announced, as you will recollect, by Lord Salisbury in his Guild-Hall speech early in November, in which he compared the American suggestion to Columbus's mode of showing how to make an egg stand on end. The above is more of a dose than you have a right to expect from the simple inquiry contained in your note. I am going to let it stand, however, because it is possible it may recall or suggest something you would like to ask about or to which you would like to refer in your proposed addresses. Further, the above is dictated from general recollection merely. If any special date or fact is called in question, I should want to verify any statement by reference to documents or papers before guarantying its exact accuracy.... I am Very sincerely yours Heads of Proposed Treaty between Venezuela and Great Britain for Settlement of Venezuela Boundary Question, as agreed upon between Great Britain and the United States' I An arbitral tribunal shall be immediately appointed to determine the boundary line between the colony of British Guiana and the Republic of Venezuela. II The tribunal shall consist of two members nominated by the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States and 1 From Foreign Relations of the United States, 1896, p. 254. two members nominated by the judges of the British supreme court of justice, and of a fifth juror selected by the four persons so nominated, or, in the event of their failure to agree within three months from the time of their nomination, selected by His Majesty the King of Sweden and Nor way. The person so selected shall be president of the tribunal. The persons nominated by the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the British supreme court of justice, respectively, may be judges of either of said courts. III The tribunal shall investigate and ascertain the extent of the territories belonging to or that might lawfully be claimed by the United Netherlands or by the Kingdom of Spain, respectively, at the time of the acquisition by Great Britain of the colony of British Guiana, and shall determine the boundary line between the colony of British Guiana and the Republic of Venezuela. IV In deciding the matters submitted the arbitrators shall ascertain all the facts which they deem necessary to a decision of the controversy and shall be governed by the following rules, which are agreed upon by the high contracting parties as rules to be taken as applicable to the case, and by such principles of international law not inconsistent therewith as the arbitrators shall determine to be applicable to the case. RULES (a) Adverse holding or prescription during a period of fifty years shall make a good title. The arbitrators may deem exclusive political control of a district, as well as actual settlement thereof, sufficient to constitute adverse holding or to make title by prescription. (b) The arbitrators may recognize and give effect to rights and claims resting on any other ground whatever, valid according to international law, and on any principles of international law which the arbitrators may deem to be applicable to the case and which are not in contravention of the foregoing rule. (c) In determining the boundary line, if territory of one party be found by the tribunal to have been at the date of this treaty in the occupation of the subjects or citizens of the other party, such effect shall be given to such occupation as reason, justice, the principles of international law, and the equities of the case shall, in the opinion of the tribunal, require. November 12, 1896 RICHARD OLNEY [Note. A treaty for the settlement of the VenezuelaBritish Guiana boundary controversy was signed at Washington on February 2, 1897, by Sir Julian Pauncefote, on the part of Great Britain, and by Señor Don José Andrade, on the part of Venezuela.] APPENDIX V INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION [IN the text the diplomatic correspondence which led up to the Olney-Pauncefote treaty of general arbitration was necessarily summarized very briefly. Accordingly the principal documents are here given in full (from "Foreign Relations of the United States," 1896, pages 222-40), the main clauses of the treaty being included. The text will have reminded the reader that these official notes were accompanied by much informal discussion between the Secretary of State and the British Ambassador. See, also, several references to the general arbitration negotiations in the exchange of letters between Olney and Mr. Henry White and in Olney's letter of March 6, 1901, to Cleveland which have been placed in Appendix IV. In this appendix is also included a paper which Olney wrote for the American Society of International Law entitled "General Arbitration Treaties." Few Americans have expressed themselves on this important subject with an authority comparable to Olney's.] No. 65 CORRESPONDence betweeN THE UNITED States and GREAT BRITAIN Salisbury to Pauncefote FOREIGN OFFICE, March 5, 1896 SIR: In the spring of last year communications were exchanged between your Excellency and the late Mr. Gresham upon the establishment of a system of international arbitration for the adjustment of disputes between the two Governments. Circumstances, to which it is unnecessary to refer, prevented the further consideration of the question at that time. But it has again been brought into prominence by the controversy which has arisen upon the Venezuelan boundary. Without touching upon the matters raised by that dispute, it appears to me that the occasion is favorable for renewing the general discussion upon a subject in which both nations feel a strong interest, without having been able up to this time to arrive at a common ground of agreement. The obstacle which has separated them has been the difficulty of deciding how far the undertaking to refer all matters in dispute is to be carried. On both sides it is admitted that some exceptions must be made. Neither Government is willing to accept arbitration upon issues in which the national honor or integrity is involved. But in the wide region that lies within this boundary the United States desire to go further than Great Britain. For the view entertained by Her Majesty's Government there is this consideration to be pleaded, that a system of arbitration is an entirely novel arrangement, and, therefore, the conditions under which it should be adopted are not likely to be ascertained antecedently. The limits ultimately adopted must be determined by experiment. In the interests of the idea, and of the pacific results which are expected from it, it would be wise to commence with a modest beginning, and not to hazard the success of the principle by adventuring it upon doubtful ground. The suggestion in the heads of treaty which I have enclosed to your Excellency will give an opportunity for observing more closely the working of the machinery, leaving it entirely open to the contracting parties, upon favorable experience, to extend its application further, and to bring under its action controversies to which for the present it can only be applied in a tentative manner and to a limited extent. Cases that arise between states belong to one of two classes. They may be private disputes in respect to which the state is representing its own subjects as individuals, or they may be issues which concern the state itself considered as a whole. A claim for an indemnity or for damages belongs generally to the first class; a claim to territory or sovereign rights belongs to the second. For the first class of differences the |