and as regards that part of the territory between the Schomburgk line and their extreme claim, * * * they are prepared to submit their claims to the arbitration of a third party."

The following is the concluding summary:

1. Long prior to, and at the date of the treaty of Münster (1648), the Dutch had founded settlements in various parts of the territory of British Guiana, particularly upon the coast.

2. The only settlement established by Spain prior to that date was the post of San Thomé de la Guayana.

3. During the whole period, between 1648 and 1796, the Dutch were in uninterrupted possession of the entire coast line from the river Corentin to Barima. 4. During the same period they had explored the upper portions of nearly all the rivers, and to a considerable extent made settlements in the adjacent districts.

5. Prior to 1723, there was no settlement by the Spaniards in the territory in question except San Thomé de la Guayana, twice removed from its original location farther up the river.

6. Between 1724 and 1796 the Capuchin missions were established south of the Orinoco, and gradually extended eastward toward the Dutch territory, the farthest point occupied by the Spaniards being the village of Tumeremo, founded about 1788.

7. Before 1796 Dutch settlements had existed far up the Cuyuni, a Dutch post was established near the river Yuruari, and the Dutch had full control of the whole basin of the Cuyuni.

8. With the exception of the settlement of San Thomé de la Guayana and missions, the Spaniards had exercised no authority or dominion whatever over the territory now in dispute.

9. Great Britain, on becoming possessor of the colony, succeeded to all the rights of the Dutch.

10. After 1796 Great Britain extended her settlements and exercised over the territory originally claimed by the Dutch all those rights by which nations usually indicate their claim to territorial possession.

11. Neither Spain nor Venezuela, after her Declaration of Independence, hid at any time either possession of or dominion over the territory in question. 12. Great Britain, while maintaining her just rights. has consistently shown her desire to make a fair arrangement with Venezuela as to the boundary.

13. The claim of Venezuela that her territory extends to the river Essequibo has been based upon contentions which are in no way supported by the facts, and cannot be justified upon any reasonable ground.

It is declared that the entire statement and the authorities as shown in the documents annexed to it establish that, if the basis of strict right be insisted on, Great Britain, as successor of the Dutch, is entitled to the territory extending to Barima, including the watersheds of all the rivers of Guiana south of the Orinoco which flow into the Atlantic.

The appearance of this official statement was hailed with a chorus of gratulation by the British press: it furnished conclusive proof" of the "spirit of equity and honor" which had actuated Britain: Americans "cannot fail to be struck by the volume and the cogency of the evidence adduced:" the British "appeal is to facts," and "no new facts can be adduced capable of seriously impairing the main positions." The above quotations-specimens of a mass that might be drawn from many papers are from the London Times of March 7; as is also the following, which is here quoted as sounding the actual keynote (though with a partisan voice) of the arguments on cach side:

"Stated shortly, our [British] case rests upon effective possession by the Dutch and by ourselves exercised for considerably over two

The case of the Venezuelans rests upon the vague pretensions of the Spaniards."

centuries.

So strong indeed stood the British case that there was felt to be both room and demand for generosity and waiving of just claims.

"We are ready," says the Times, "out of consideration for the natural aspirations and desires of our opponents, to make abatements of no insignificant kind from what we hold to be our lawful claims."

With few exceptions-the London Chronicle perhaps most notable-the tone of the English press was one of full assurance of strength, as against all that Venezuela could urge, yet utterly without threat or imperious demand. This kindliness was one of the gracious signs in the threatening skies; while the assurance, perhaps not quite reasonable-because there are two sides in this as in all disputes, and only one side had then been fully developed was quite natural, and may, for aught that the public as yet knows, be justified at last.

The American press gave full abstracts of the British statement, and seemed to consider it a strong and creditable ex parte presentation; but attempted little in the way of minute or extended criticism of its positions, deeming it wise to leave all such work to the president's commission with its trained intelligence and its immense treasure of historic material. Some errors as to matters of fact, however, which had been pointed out by the London Chronicle, were severely criticised, not at all as intentional misrepresentation nor as in themselves necessarily of cardinal importance, but as unfortunately tending to discredit the trustworthiness of the official document in which they were detected after the controversy with which it dealt had been prolonged through fifty years. The point of this criticism was not thought to be fully turned by the publication of corrections from Sir Frederick Pollock, compiler of the blue book, and by the statement that the amendment of the inaccuracies had strengthened the British cause. If any points of the controversy shall finally be reserved from arbitration, the question may arise as to what inaccuracies may exist concerning those points, and whose cause they may affect?

In the United States, the general estimate of the British presentation as a whole is that it is, as has been said, an impressively and irrefragably strong argument-for arbitration.

Venezuelan Case Presented. The first instalment of this case was formally received by the Boundary Com

mission at Washington on March 10, from ex-Minister Scruggs, counsel for the republic of Venezuela. It is understood to contain the substance of the Venezuelan contention, though a volume of supplementary evidence is expected soon from Caracas. No new facts of popular interest appear in this volume of 440 pages. It is confined to diplomatic correspondence from 1822 to the present time, without the comment and argument which were abundant in the British blue book, and is of value as containing some of the British letters omitted from that volume, as well as much official correspondence in which Great Britain had no part. While the blue book deals largely with the period before Venezuelan independence, and presents early maps already before the commission, this volume contains material less accessible, which, whether found to be important or not, is helpful to a thorough investigation.

The preface of the book is the official letter of the Palmerston ministry of March 18, 1840, discrediting the Schomburgk line as an intended boundary, followed by the treaty of London of 1814, by which the Dutch ceded to Great Britain the Cape of Good Hope and the establishments of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice. The parts of the correspondence are:

1. Instructions from the secretary of foreign affairs of ancient Colombia, of which Venezuela was a portion, in 1822, to her minister in London, directing him to insist that colonists who had crossed the Essequibo should submit to Colombian laws or retire to their former possessions.

2. Request of British minister, May 26, 1836, for Venezuela to establish a lighthouse at Point Barima.

3. The Aberdeen negotiations, 1841-44.

4. Disavowal of England's intention to claim Venezuelan Guiana in 1850.

5. Effort to settle the dispute with Earl Derby, 1876.

6.

The first Salisbury and Granville negotiations, 1880–81.

7. Negotiations in 1883-4 at Caracas.

8

General Guzman Blanco's efforts in London with Sir Julian Pauncefote and Earl Granville, 1884-86, covering seventy-five pages of the book.

9. Negotiations at Caracas, 1886-7, and reports of Venezuelan commission in disputed territory.

10 and 11. Resumption of relations and negotiations between Lord Salisbury and Dr. Palido, 1890, regarding a mixed commission to arbitrate west of the Schomburgk line.

12. The Rosebery compromise, 1893.

13. Negotiations with the United States from 1893 to the present time, asking intervention, including all the correspondence reltiave to the effort of the Pope to secure England's consent to arbitration in 1894.

Over two hundred letters and official documents are given in full in the book, arranged in chronological sequence, few of them having heretofore been quoted publicly.

Dispatches from Venezuela announced that official evidence to be laid before the Boundary Commission had been sent, and might be expected about the middle of March. The documents and the many accompanying maps relate to a period near the end of the eighteenth century. They are from the royal Spanish archives, are not in the British blue book, and are put forward to show that the Dutch

claim cannot be maintained to any possessions west of the Essequibo. Minister Andrade expects to place at disposal of the commission in due time many documents from the records of the Venezuelan legations at Rome, Madrid, London, and Paris.

The agents of Venezuela have also laid before the Boundary Commission the official report of the minister of

the interior at Caracas

to the ministry of foreign relations, of date May 23, 1890.

Its forty printed pages contain the elaborate report of a national scientific exploring expedition in Guianan territory, showing the advances made by British colonial officials into the disputed territory following on the rich discoveries of gold in 188590. This report tends to show that, according to testimony by British magistrates and others in the territory, no British settlements existed as far west as the Pomaron fiver as late as 1883; and that as late as 1888 the settlements in question were referred to by the English as "the recently acquired district." The colonial government exerted itself to induce European immigrants to settle in the gold districts in the interior, placating the Indians with generous gifts so that access might be made safe.

The whole spirit of this Venezuelan official report of six years ago is one of alarm at the steady encroachment of the governor of British Guiana on the unsettled regions claimed by Venezuela. The policy of boundary extension was pushed so far, as indicated by explorations and new military posts, as to cause fear that even the whole Orinoco river was to be brought under English control.

Public Opinion in the United States.-This may be set forth by brief notices of action by officials, of motions and speeches in congress, and of addresses by representative men-nearly in the order of their occurrence,

On January 11, "Founders' Day" at Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., President Schurman made an address on the present dispute between the United States and Great Britain.

He declared the Monroe doctrine an ideal for the public policy of the United States; pointed out Lord Salisbury's distinct acknowledg ment of it in principle; showed that this country had reason to consider England's claim against Venezuela as involving an infringement of that principle; and respectfully criticised President Cleveland for not having urged that this specific point as concerned the United States, rather than the justice of England's boundary claim as concerned Venezuela, should be submitted to arbitration. Instead of this, the president's message to the congress threatened an appeal to arms if Great Britain should refuse to accept a divisional line to be laid down by the United States. The address further pointed out the injurious or perilous inferences which might be drawn from the unlimited right of interference in all disputes between a European and any American power, which the message might well be deemed to assert. It showed also that the assent expressed in the message to an arrangement between Britain and Venezuela conceded a principle liable to be applied in subversion of the Monroe doctrine itself.

Early in January the New York Chamber of Commerce. adopted with only two dissenting votes a report of a committee expressing profound regret at the threat of war in the president's message as needlessly checking the growing prosperity of the country.

About the middle of January Senator Baker of Kansas introduced a joint resolution in the senate newly defining the Monroe doctrine by declaring unfriendly the act of any foreign power in extending its territorial limits. in this hemisphere by war, treaty, purchase, or otherwise. This controverts the declaration in the president's message, that the United States would "of course" accept any settlement with England which Venezuela might think advantageous.

A similar exclusion of "direct settlement" between Britain and Venezuela is in the concurrent resolution in expansion of the Monroe doctrine, framed by Senator Cushman K. Davis of Minnesota, and favorably reported on January 20 in the senate from the committee on foreign relations, with only one negative vote, that of Senator Gray of Delaware:

"Resolved, That the United States of America reaffirms and confirms the doctrines and principles promulgated by President Monroe in his message of December 2, 1823, and declares that it will assert and maintain that doctrine and those principles, and will regard any infringement thereof, and particularly any attempt by any European power to take or acquire any new territory on the American continents, or any islands adjacent thereto, for any right of sovereignty or