The Portland daily press., 1882-05-15

Inc CUaDSIQ6uC tldU Se1iA1S oA'O -|A@~
Through the House Two to One.
Following are the remarks made by Mr..
Reed of Maine on the Geneva Award Bill IN
the House, Wednesday the 10th inst.
Mr. Speaker, it had not been my intention at
the present time to address the House on the
subject which is now before US. | intended to
reserve what desired to say for the close of
the debate; but it has been deemed best under
all the circumstances that 1 should make a
statement to the House, explaining as briefly
and simply as may be able all the views
which are entertained by the committee in re-
gard to the distribution of the award which is
covered by this bill. shall noe be v1lumin-
GUS in that presentation. shall not deal very
greatly with dates and figures, but shall en-
deavor to present the great saliaut and impor-
tant facts, together with the line of argument
which the committee deemed necessary to for
tify the conclusions TO which they have come:
While the facts connected with this award
are scattered over a large number OF Volumes
some eighteen or twenty, they are nevertheless
in reality few in number so far they are of
controlling influence; and if the house will be
kind enough to listen to me [ will endeavor to
set them forth in such fashion as may aid their
Judgment, if possible, and not beclouo it,
1t is perfectly well known that during the
late war of the rebellion large number of
ships preyed upon our commerce which were
fitted out at British or colonial ports during the
progress of the war; and while those privateers
we're sweeping our commerce from the seas our
Secretary of State and our minister to England
made various representations and took various
grounds, upon which they stated that they
should ultimately cause reclamations to be
made. But at the time we were in no position
to insist on anything that might be called our
rights.
After the close of the war efforts were begun
at once to repair what we deemed to be our
great injury resulting from the action of these
cruisers. We charged upon England that she
was responsible for the devastation of our COM
merce which had been caused. We declared
that her recognition of belligerency was prema-
ture and legally blamewortny, and had con-
tributed to our disaster. During all the diplo-
| matte correspondence on the subject we in
| sisted upon that with iteration upon iteration
| When Reverdy johnson was minister to Eng
| lane he concluded two conventions to settle
| these claims which in the meantime had been
| filed in the Department of State by each per-
| son who thought he had claim.
| The first convention, which was known a.
| the Johnson-Stanley convention, simply pro-
vided for the settlement of private claims, in.
| dividual claims against Great Britain; it pro
| vided that commission should be formed
which should settle and dispose of the individ.
ual claims. That convention was rejected on
account of some criticisms as toits details made
| by the Secretary of state.
| @
| convention, called the Johnson Clarendon con-
| vention, was accepted by the Secretary of State
| after having been negotiated by our minister
| offoreign affairs That convention, when it was
! submitted to the Senate, being simply treaty
| for the settlement of individual claims with
out taking into account any national loss, was
| rejected by the Senate, and rejected upon two
| grounds first, that the convention contained
no apology for the conduct OF Great Britain
| which We deemed unsuitable, which we deemed
l .s11- 1rr,rr
because it contained no proposition to submit
| the claims as a whole, as a national loss, to {
| tribunal for decision. The Senate rejected this
| by an overwhelming majority, and from tina
| time there was an end of private claims al
| such presented by the Government of the Unit
| ed States.
| From that time on the history of the transac
| ton is the history of an affair between nations
| II ceased to be affair on the part of individ
] uals against Great Britain and became an at
| fair of the United States against the nation Of
| Great Britain. In that state of affairs Greai
| Britain sent some neeotiators here to Washing
ton and we sent plenipotentiaries here to mee
! them; and those people got together and draft
| ed treaty, which was called the treaty Of
| Washington, which was adopted finally june
| 81, 1871.
| That treaty of Washington, unlike those two
| conventions which | have described, was moi
| an affair of individual claims. 1t was a broad
| national transaction. 1t contained in it not on
| ly provision that individual claims, outside O.
\ the Alabama claims should be considered by
separate commission, but it provided that the
/ Alabama claims should be referred to a tribu
| nal and that that tribunal should be governed
| by three new rules of international law, which
| three new rules were thereafter to control the
action of the United States and of Great Brit
| ain in all future time, together with the action
| of such nations as they pledged themselves tx
| get to agree with them finally il they could.
| The establishment of these three rules anG
the apology, which, forgot to state, was also
| rendered ia the treaty, and the provision that
| the whole claim should be referred in bulk in q
| particular event to the tribunal at Geneva, was
| transaction which was made altogether. II
| was transaction which was one and the same
| it was transaction which was made asa whole
| and whatever advantage the United States 90,
was paid for by compromise, by the surrender
| of other claims and grounds of claim. Among
! other things which disappeared when that trea
| ty was made was what was in the correspond
| ence during the war between the Secretary Of
| State and the British minister made the mosi
| prominent ground for reclamation against
| Gfeat Britain, namely, the declaration that We
! should hold Great Britain responsible for a
| premature recognition of belligereney; and il
| disappeared because the English Government
| declined, and very properly, to submit TO any
| tribunal on earth other than their own govern
| ment the propriety of recognizing belligereAcy,
| They claimed that that was an attribute Of SOW
| ereignity which no nation had a right to ques-
| ton, and we were obliged to waive that. We
| waived it for the sake Of making treaty aud
| as a part of the terms which entered into the
| whole situation.
| Such being the state of affairs, the tribunal
| at Geneva assembled and there was presented
| before them q series of claims made up of vari-
| Gus items, every man in the United States pre-
| senting every thing which he deemed to be a
| claim, no matter what it was. Among those
claims were claims for the destruction of yes
| sells; and you will Dotice that the claim for the
destruction of vessels involved questions OF teS
| timony as to how much property was destroyed
| and among the ways of presenting 1t was pre-
| sentation of the claims of insurance compa.
| MES. But, of course, as between the nations
| the only question was how many vessels were
| lost. As to the price of them and how the
| price was made up, that was purely and simply
| a question of evidence. Then, in addition tc
| that, the nation presented claims for the con-
| tinuance of the war and for the enhancement
| of war premiums. 1t also presented claims fol
the destruction Of all property by all classes OF
| cruisers.
| Now, want to deal with this subject fully
| and frankly The tribunal decided that the
| claims for enhancement of war premiums
| could not be recognized by it. 1t also decided
| that it would not consider the claims for the
| proongation of the war; and the United States
| acquiesced in that.
Now let me call your attention to the att.
| tude of the United States upon the subject
| The United States had established certain rules
| and it wanted those rules construed but it did
| not want them construed SO as to hold us to a
| liability of great damage in the future. Why's
Because the United States in the future was
| going to be neutral power from its very stu
| alton, and hence the United States did not de-
| sire to have these rules construed too sharply
| against neutralS.
| If these rules should be construed too sharply
against Great Britain, and we should under
| that construction get million or more dollars
| then the next time the discussion would come
| up on our liabilities, and you will at once see
that we would probably in the future be in
danger of being heavily and severely mulcted
| ourselves