The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-05-30
A LAND OF SURPRISES
Canada's Queer Ideas of Inter-
national Comfy.
WANTS TO HOG IT ALL
American Lumbermen Tricked - The
British Columbia Incident-Nursery-
men We're Robbed - Prepos-
ferrous Alaskan Claims.

Washington, May 29.-Feeling it to be
necessary at this stage in the exchanges
between the United States and Great
Britain respecting the Canadian bound
ary controversy, that the exact atti-
tude of the American commissioners
should be defined and that the people
not only of the United States but of
Great Britain might have an oppor-
tunity to judge for themselves the COM
parative rectitude of the actions of the
United States and Canada respectively,
the following statement has been OBJ
tanned from prominent person:
Canada continues to be land of
surprises. The friendly protocol of
Washington was signed on May 80,
1898, for the adjustment of all difficult
| ties between the United States in
most amicable spirit. The ink to that
protocol was only well dried when the
province of Ontario discovered a chance
to exhibit her idea of international
equity American lumbermen had been
invited to take the timber lands in the
province with the privilege of cutting
logs and exporting them to the Unit
ed States.
THE provincial government, after
giving them leases and taking their
money into the treasury, passed a de
cree prohibiting the export of such logs,
with the result of causing some bank
ruptcies in Michigan. During the ses-
sions of the commission the same pc
culiar idea of international justice was
exhibited in another province-that of
British Columbia. This time it was the
| mining interests that were involved.
The authorities of that province took
the money of the American mining en-
gineers. who made the discoveries of
gold allowed them to spend thousands
of dollars in constructing a roadway to
| the scene of their interests, and then
| proceeded to change their laws to con-
| fine all such mining privileges to Brit
| ish subjects and British corporations
Another such instance of this kind
| of practice was worked out on Amer-
can nurserymen. They had taken con-
| tracts to supply certain stocks to the
| Canadians when, under the pretense of
| fear of San Jose scale. the Canadian
| authorities prohibited any further i'm
| portatiOns of nursery stock. At the
same time the Canadian courts held the
| Americans liable for violation of con-
| tracts which their own laws had caused
| to be vacated.
1.-The dominion government also
seems to share these peculiar principles
| of intercourse in respect to the bound
| nantly against any conditions saving
| the existing right of Americans to the
| country to be arbitrated. Years before
| the commission met, United States cit
| liens, without any question or protest
! against their right to do SO, had occu-
| pied the headwaters of the Lynn canal
| and established towns and settlements
| there. Canada had never asserted a
| claim to that region. The Americans
| had built paths over the passes from
| the Lynn canal beyond the mountains
and communication with the Yukon by
| intervening lakes and streams. This,
! too was done without protest or ques
| tion of their right to pass over the
mountain SUBMITS. Under these cir
cumstances the United States commits
| sioners thought it right to withhold
such tdewater settlements from the
arbitrators' jurisdiction, and it was
against this limitation that the Cana
dian commissioners so Vehemently pro
tested Now it seems that Canada is
protesting with equal vehemence
against arbitration until the United
States shall agree to give them in any
case the Pyramid harbor region, to
| which they never before the meeting OF
| the commission asserted any rights
and which they had never occupied
| with flag or constable. or Canadian
subject or even canoe.
| GLOW they reconcile this with their
| position in the commission with respect
| to referring the boundary question 10
| arbitration remains to be explained to
| the British government. There seems
little prospect of adjustment of the
boundary question if it is left to the
| control of the Canadians. If they are
to control the action of the imperial
| government it is important to that
government that Canada should bring
| her ideas to conformity with these
which have hitherto guided Great Brit
ain and the United States in the paths
| of peace and friendship.
"The officials familiar with what has
| been done so far in the Canadian nego-
| tiations discuss very quietly the pub
| lished statements that the present rup-
| ture grew out Of the failure of the two
| countries to agree upon the nationality
| of an umpire for the proposed arbitra-
| ton with the simple remark that this
referred to phase of the negotiations
existing many months back when the