The San Francisco call., 1898-12-06

Al
 been agreed upon be- tween the signatories of the genera act for the return of Mataafa and the other exiled Samoan chiefs, they were nrough5 I from Jaluit by a German war vessel and landed at Apia on September lS last.
 Whether the death of Malietoa and the return of his old-time rival, Mataafa, will add to the undesirable complications which the execution of the tripartite gen. eral act has heretofore developed remains to be seen The efforts of this Govern ment will, as heretofore, be addressed toward harmonious and exact fulfill ment of the terms of the international en- gagement to which the United States be- came a party in 1889.
 some five years of controversy, has been adjusted by arbitration, under an agree ment signed July S. 1897, an award of 7O6,- 721 ticals (about $1S7 ,93O, with the release of Cheeks estate from mortgage claims. having been rendered March 2l, 1898, in favor of the claimant by the arbitrator. Sir Nicholas John Hannah. British Chief Justice for China and Japan.
 An envoy from Siam has been accredited to this Government, and has presented his credentials.
 Immediately upon the outbreak of the war with Spain, the Swiss Government. fulfilling the high mission 1t has deserv- edly assumed as the patron of the Inter national Red Cross, proposed to the United States and Spain that they should severally recognize and carry into exc cution as a modus vivendi during the con- tinuance of hostilitieS the additional arti- cles proposed by the International Con- ference at Geneva October 26, 1868, eX- tending the effects of the existing Red Cross Convention of 1864 to the conduct of naval war. Following the example set by France and Germany in 1870, in adopting such a modus vivendi, and in view of the accession of the United States to those additional articles in 1882. although the exchange of ratification thereof still re- mained unaffected. the Swiss proposal was cordially accepted by us and simul- taneously by Spain.
 This Government feels a keen satisfac- tion in having thus been enabled to tes- tify it's adherence to the broadest prin- ciples of humanity even amidst the clash of war and it is to be hoped that the eX- tension of the Red Cross compact to hos tilities by sea as well as on land may soon become an accomplished fact to the general promulgation of addi- tional naval Red Cross articles by the maritime powers now parties to the con- The important question of the claim of Switzerland to the perpetual cantonal al- legiance of American citizens of Swiss origin has not made hopeful progress to- ward solution, and controversies in this regard still continue.
 The newly accredited envoy of the Uni ted States to the Ottoman Porte carries
 instructions looking to
 Our Claims the disposal of matters
 in controversy with
 Against Turkey for number
 +ha ,,rL of years. He is espe-
 the urA. cially charged to press
 for just settlement our claims for indemnity by reason of the destruction of property of American missionaries resident in that country dur ing the Armenian troubles of 1885, as we'll as for the recognition of older claims of equal justness. He is also instructed to seek an adjustment of the dispute grow ing out of the refusal of Turkey to recog-