The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-12-21
REPUDIATED BONDS AND ARDI-
TRATION TREATIES.

REPUDIATED BONDS AND ARDI-
TRATION TREATIES.
1t was hoped that the arbitration
| treaties with England, France, Ger
many, Italy and Switzerland, which
have been signed. would be ratified
without debate. Within the last week
or two, however. the question as to
whether or not these treaties could be
used to force a settlement of the re-
pudiated bonds of the Southern states
has been raised. Quite a number of
letters relative to the treaties has been
received by the Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs, and several of them
raise this point respecting the repu-
dated bonds of the Southern states.
1t is stated that a syndicate of Amer
lean and foreign capitalists hold
great many of these bonds which ag-
gregate with interest about 100000, 900.
Some of the governors Of Southern
states have been heard from in respect
to the matter. Senator Foster of Lou
isiana has called the attention of the
Board of Trade of New Orleans to
the treaties, saying that there is "a
well defined report that there turks in
them, under the fair guise of peace and
arbitration. a great menace to the
South"
OF course Southern senators viii look
carefully into the treaties and if the
report is we'll founded they will offer
vigorous opposition to their ratification.
These bonds of the Southern states
were repudiated after they had been
carefully scrutinized and shown to
have been unawfully issued. The ut
most care was taken in this state in
sitting the genuine bonds from the
fraudulent ones. Still, there may be
doubt as to what a court would do if
asked to pass upon the validity of
some of the repudiated bonds.
Recently the United States Supreme
Court decided in favor of the validity
of ten of the repudiated bonds of the
state of North Carolina, and that state
has been directed to pay the bonds
before the first Monday in January on
pain of having some of it's property
seized. The decision was in favor of
the bonds, however, by a very mar
row majority, the court standing five
to four.
OF course an individual holder of
these repudiated bonds cannot sue the
state that issued them. The only way
suit can be brought on such bonds is
by disposing of them to state. The
North Carolina bonds were given to
South Dakota, and that state brought
the suit. 1t must appear beyond ques-
tion that the gift is genuine. 1t will
be recalled that New Hampshire has
a statute enacted expressly for the
purpose of enabling holders of these
repudiated bonds to get their money,
but the court said that New Hamp-
shire couldn't become a collecting
agency. New Hampshire wasn't made
the beneficiary of the bonds.
A few days ago a man named
James, resident of Philadelphia, Of
fered to give Iowa ten of the bonds,
but the Governor of that state de-.
clined to accept them. He doubtless.
thought it was simply scheme of a.
lot of SPECTATORS in the bonds to get.
a decision on their validity, and he de-
clined to be a party to any such
scheme against a sister state.
The decision in the case of the
North Carolina bonds causes no great
uneasiness in the South for two rea-l
sons, namely, each issue of bonds of
each state must stand on it's own.
merits and, as the decision was by
such a narrow majority, the proba-!
bility is that in another case the de-
cision would be against the bonds.
Besides there isn't any other state.
that is going to be in haste to ac-'
cept few bonds to assist lot Of
spectators.