Spanish military occupation and surveillance of the lower Cuyuni resulted, in 1772, in the final abandonment of the last Dutch post in that river, three days' journey from the Dutch fort.

We conclude this discussion with the remark that Great Britain is not only asserting here a doctrine, as to river mouth settlements, the reverse of that maintained by her in the Oregon case, but is in the case now at bar denying to Venezuela the benefit of the alleged rule, while claiming it in her own behalf. Spain held the Orinoco, not constructively but actually. In the language of the British Counter-Case (p. 28): "The Spaniards entered, explored, settled and effectively defended the Orinoco." The occupation of the Orinoco and of the Essequibo present two very different cases. The former was entered, explored, settled and effectively defended" by Spain. Of Essequibo and the Dutch these things cannot be said. If the Orinoco was Spain's--if she owned both its banks, from mouth to source, as she did--then a very mild and reasonable application of the watershed theory would give her the tributary streams-the Waini, the Barima and the Amacura. Her acknowledged dominion over the main stream could not be maintained without these. In the case of the Essequibo, Great Britain seeks to appropriate the main stream and all its tributaries by mere construction, and that apparently before any Dutchman had passed above the tide limit. And yet, admitting Spain's actual, effective dominion of the Orinoco, she denies to Spain two of its tributaries and seeks to appropriate by the seizure of Barima Point the command of the Orinoco itself.

CHAPTER XX.

MIDDLE DISTANCE AND NATURAL BOUNDARIES.

While no definite use has been made here, so far as we recall, by Great Britain of what is called the rule of the middle distance, it will not be amiss to briefly to state the reason and limits of the rule. It is not a mere rule of compromise-the splitting of the difference-and can have no application to any case where there is a line of right. This great Tribunal is organized to find the line of right, and is required to establish it when found. It cannot omit to do either of these things. It cannot, without finding the line of right, fix upon a middle line; nor, after finding the true boundary, give to one nation that which it has found belonged to another. Before the rule of the middle distance can be used, it must be found that there is no line of right; that neither party has a superior right to the whole or any determinate part of the disputed territory. In that case the middle distance is not the splitting of a difference, but the nearest possible ascertainment of the line of right. It proceeds upon the theory that there is no better right to any part of the territory in dispute. Neither party admits, or even suggests that we have such a case here. In the discussion between Spain and the United States, as to the western boundary of Louisiana, the former rested the suggestion of the middle distance upon the theory that two nations had made discoveries and settlements at some distance from each other, and that neither had a superior claim to the territory in controversy. In the case at bar Spain only has the discoverer's title, while that of the Dutch rests upon conquest, treaty, prescription, or an alleged abandonment of the discoverer's title. But if, in any case of a disputed boundary, the middle distance is to be applied as a basis of compromise, it

must relate to the beginning of the controversy. If one party has already, over the protest and insistence of the other, split the difference for himself by pushing forward his occupation to the middle distance, it would be an intolerable suggestion that an arbitration tribunal should again give him a middle distance. The rule as to natural boundaries was much, and very strangely, made use of by Schomburgk in his reports, and is still invoked to justify large Dutch and British encroachments. As applied to the British claims here, the rule is of very narrow application, and has relation rather to the field work of the surveyor than to the apportionment of large territories. It assumes that the line of right is approximately on the ridge, or watershed, or river, and that natural line is adopted rather than the nearby artificial one--because it furnishes a more permanent marking than the surveyor's posts. The use of the rule by Schomburgk is very extraordinary. Before he entered upon his survey he had selected his natural boundaries for British Guiana, and distinctly upon the principle that every point of advantage must fall upon the British side of the line. One is filled with wonder as he reads Schomburgk's letter to Governor Light, of July 16, 1839 (B. C. VII, pp., 2-7), to see the partiality shown by the Creator towards Great Britain. Every range and river was so located as to give to her a strategic point and to leave her neighbors defenseless. In every instance the "natural boundaries" beckoned Great Britain forward. If she claimed to one river, the one beyond was the "natural boundary "! If rapacity and injustice could ever be humorous, that letter of Schomburgk would give him new and unsought fame. He solemnly deprecates the "political motives" of the Brazilians, and appropriates the Amacura "to insure the political importance which always would be attached to the mouth of the Orinoco." He criticizes a boundary survey by the Brazilians, because the other Powers interested were not present in order to give their consent to the "extraordinary pretensions" of the one-sided and self-elected Brazilian Boundary

Commissioners, and forth with sets about doing the same thing. He determines that Great Britain must have the command of the Orinoco, and must secure the savannahs about the Rupununi, in order to "command an inland navigation which may be extended to the Pacific Ocean." "A glance at the map of South America," he says, "is sufficient to show what advantages Great Britain may expect from these boundaries." He concludes that it is entirely "practicable to run and mark the limits of British Guiana on the system of natural divisions, and that the limits thus defined are in perfect unison with the title of Her Britannic Majesty to the full extent of that territory." What a rare and felicitous happening! Great Britain's rights and her wants accord! But the accord is not casual; her rights were fitted to her needs. Schomburgk, before going to Barima, had given to Great Britain the command of the Orinoco, and his observations there are to be taken in the light of that fact.

It was of this sort of use of the rule of natural boundaries that Phillimore wrote the phrase "has been much used by powerful military states to cover the unjust spoliation of their weaker neighbors."

Natural boundaries that mark a geographical unit may be properly taken account of in determining the limits of a constructive occupation. But in the case in hearing, a line of right must be found, and when it is found no considerable amount of territory, and no strategic point can be taken from one and given to another by this rule. Only unimportant deviations may be made, and these may not all be at the cost of one party.

SUMMARY.

Thus far, in the discussion of the question of limits upon the theory of Great Britain that all of the disputed territory was, when the Dutch came to Essequibo, terra nullius; or, if not, that by the Treaty of Munster the Dutch obtained an equal right with Spain