Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1898-11-11
Asserts that the United States
Has No Ultimate Rights
in8the islands.
CITES PROTOCOL PROVISIONS
Evident No Thought Was En-
tertained Of Annexation
at That Time.
Americans Hold the Document
Provides for the Matter
Of Ownership.

Of Ownership.
PARIS, Nov. THE Spanish commits
%sioners, in the course Of a two hours
session of the joint peace conference,
fatty refused to accept Mondays propo-
sition by the Americans to take the en-
tire Philippine group and to reimburse
Spain for her ''pacifc" expenditures
there.
This negative action was. expected.
The Spanish commissioners had also a
number of positive declarations which
filed some 81 sheets of typewriter
presentment.
In this statement the Spaniards held
that the United States had no ultimate
rights in the Philippine islands and
could have one save by the consent of
Spain in these negotiations
Upon Terms Satisfactory to Hes.
According to the Spanish contention in
the formal statement the UnitA States
entertained no thought of annexing the
Philippines when the protocol was
signed, OF it would have been expressed
in the protocol as clearly as the condi-
tions regarding the cession of territory
in the Antilles and the Orient. M. Cam
bon. before tho the signature of the pro-
tocol, received from Madrid, the pre-
sentiment alleged, a cable message set
ting forth that the maintenance of
SPANS authority over the Philippines
should not be affected by the protocol,
to which reservation the United States
made at that time no protest or objec-
ton. This dispatch to NJ. Cambon, as
the Spaniards claimed, embodied also
the view that the United States had
No Valid Basis for Claims
in the archipelago. 1t was further held
by Senior Rios and his colleagues that
the capitulation of Manila, having &C.
CURED after the signing of the proto-
col and thus after the suspension of hos
t~ilities, vas invalid.
With all this for a ground work the
Spaniards made their first positive move
against the Americans, and it consti-
tuted their counter proposition. They
charged upon the United States o
wrongful appropriation of public moneys
belonging to Spain by Selling the tariff
duties nt Manila, and they formally de-
manded the return of these moneys in
the sum of nearly 81, 00O, 900.
On the same premises the United
States was declared to have made and
held as prisoners the Spanish troops at
Manila in ID
Violation Of International Law,
because done after the suspension of hos
tilities under the protocol. A further
charge was that by the imprisonment Of
the Spanish troops at Manila the United
States had prevented Spain from quell-
ing the insurrection and had thus con-
tributed to the violence against Spain
after the cessation Of hostilities. The
Spanish presentment also cited the re-
fusal of the Americans to consider the
Cuban debt on the ground that 1t was
not sanctioned in the protocol and de-
manded an adherence to this as q prece-
dent in the discussion of the Philippines,
regarding o cession Of which the Span
ish commissioners held the protocol to
make no mention.
American Idea Of the PROTOCOL.
It may again be asserted on the high,
est authority-as bearing on the Spanish
argument-that when the protocol was
signed there was no understanding, YER
bal Or otherwise, which the protocol
does not show forth. Nor have the
American commissioners at any time,
on the other hand, held or believed that
the protocol determined anything
against Spain's sovereignty in the Philip
pines. 1
The American representatives have,
however, held, and doubtless will hold,
that the protocol was meant to provide
and does provide for a decision by the
Paris conference regarding the owner
ship Of the Philippines.