The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1896-03-17
British Common Sense on the Bound.
airy Question.

airy Question.
From time to time we have directed at
tention to the remarkable change under
gone by British public opinion regarding
the reasonableness of President CLEvE-
LANDS attitude toward the Venezuela
boundary affair. An amusing effect Of
this change has been to leave the Dough-
faces and Copperheads of thisc country high
and dry. One cannot but smile, for in
stance, at the wry faces which these fellows
are likely to make when they read the
paper entitled The Seamy Side Of British
Guiana" contributed by an Englishman,
Mr.. FRANCIS CoMYN, to the March number
of the Nineteenth Century. The writer OF
this article speaks with authority, having
travelled through the disputed territory in
the company, curiously enough, Of the very
police officer who was arrested for trespass
by the Venezuelan officials. He first riddles
all the other pleas put forward for the
British opponents Of arbitration, and then
he refutes the final argument in which they
have taken refuge, the argument, namely,
that large numbers of British c~olonists,
having settled in the debatable land, they
are entitled to protection at the hands Of
the BRUSH Government.
After referring to the lamentable igno-
rance exhibited by his countrymen for some
time after the Venezuela question was
raised by Mr.. C~LEvELAND's message, Mr..
CoMYN proceeds to establish certain funda-
mental facts. We shall only state his con-
illusions where the grounds for them are
already familiar to our readers, but we shall
dwell more at length upon What he, as an
eyewitness, says about the want of basis
for the pretence that any part Of the dis
puted territory Is permanently settled by
British colonists. The first OF the facts
pronounced by this Englishman incontro-
vertible, is that England has steadily re-
fused to submit this boundary dispute to
real arbitration. What she would have
agreed to, he says, amounted practically to
official recognition OF her right to all she
wanted at the moment, with as much in
addition ms an arbitration might award her.
The only occasion on which the steady main
tenance OF this arbitrary position was in
terrupted was when Lord GRANVILLE MAY
25, 1883 agreed that the title to the whole
of the disputed land should be determined
by arbitrators. This act, it is well known,
was disavowed by Lord SALISBURY, when,
shortly afterward, he became tho head
of the British Foreign Office. In the
second place. Mr.. CoMYN sees and shows
that it is not Venezuela nor the United
States, but England, that has treated the
present critical situation. This has been
brought about by England's sending to
Venezuela an ultimatum claiming $780,
900 and an apology for the arrest and de-
nprfufipn nf tyn RritiGh Eninpa ,,nlfoo
officers who had trespassed upon territory
claimed by Venezuela. That this ultima
tum was "A wanton provocation was proved
by the fact that although, several years ago,
n similar alleged outrage took place, Mr..
MCTURK, a British Guiana police magis-
trate, having been similarly treated, Eng
land did nothing beyond u%ttering IA protest.
Mr.. CoMYN goes on to Stay the slain by
demonstrating that the Schomburgk line
is as unsubstantial as the line defined in
Euclid, and he concludes the first part Of
his article by describing rs of small value
the opinion Of American citizens who elect
to live out OF their own country, and by
~denouncing the assertion that England's
honor is involved in a miserable, needless,
silly dispute.
What is really new and important In this
paper is the truth supplied that there is alb,
solutely no basis for the declarations that
the disputed territory is English by occupa-
ton and settlement, and that England must
defend her colonists and planters. With re-
gard to this point Mr.. CoNYN begins by
quoting SoHs statistics from a handbook of
British Guiana, published in connection
with the Chicago Exposition. and complied
kAAkg GalaaiaI Gaus.auasnE H. NJ RGn.