The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-08
MR. TAFT SPEAKS ON ARBITRATION Addresses Big Crowd at
 Connecticut Fair CRITICISES SENATE
President Deals With Arbitration Technicalities and Ridicules Sen ate for Its Opposition to
 the Proposed Treaties

 Hartford. Conn. September 7.-To a Connecticut audience of 0,ooo gathered on the home stretch of Charter Oak race ltrack this afternoon President Taft spoke on arbitration between nations. It was an laudience drawn from the rural sections. President Taft was both the guest of the state and of the Connecticut Fair as- lsocfation and his address followed a state luncheon. At the race track rope held | back the people, but the President 'mme- ldiately asked that the barrier be taken down and then the people rushed within sound of his voice.
 The President was in excellent voice. Time and again his plea for an arbitra-
 ton agreement between the great na- tions of the world was applauded. At the close the President returned to his motor ear and was whirled into the city, leaving for Boston at o'clock.
 President Taft dealt almost exclusively with legal technicalties of arbitration treaties with England and France, now awaiting approval of the American Senate.
 Perhaps the most significant part of his address as follows ",The majority of the Senate committee
 on foreign relations say they cannot con sent that somebody else shall decide for them where question arising in ths future is within the provisions of the first article of this treaty that for them to do so is to delegate their power to am
 other tribunal and is to bind themselves | by an obligation which they have no power to assume.
 Tt is the view of the minority. and with that view I am earnestly in ac-
 cord, that the issue where future dif- ference shall be within the terms of the description of article I of the treaty is
 an international question arising out of a construction of treaty under a claim of right by one of the parties to an ar bitration, and is question therefore that the President and Senate, acting as a treaty making power, have the right to agree by treaty to submit to a tribunal for final judgment.
 | Tn what different way is the treaty
 making power invoked when we ask the Senate to concur in a treaty which agrees | to submit all justifable differences to ar- bitration. and when it is asked to agree,
 subject to arbitration, to the question
 whether a difference arising is justifiable
 or not under the treaty? l q confess that I cannot see the dis 1 tinction.
 l Now, if I understand the attitude of
 the majority of the Senate. they have
 no power, and therefore the government
 has no power, to enter into treaty which
 shall agree 10 submit to third person, | constituting an independent tribunal the question where are bound under treaty to abide the judgment of the tri-
 bInal to particular issue.
 The treaty making power under the constitution 1t has been decided by the supreme court. hardly knows definition or | limit. IL Is one of the broadest powers
 conferred by the constitution. and it is conferred upon the executive and Senate. However. 1t is not within the cause of peace that that power should be limited in such a way that other governments may make treaties of this kind and we may not.
 | q have stated frankly how remarkable seems to me the reasoning by which the majority of the committee arrive al the conclusion that the constitution pre- cludes their making treaty of arbitra- tion in which the question, where the diff ferences arising is within the treaty is to be settled Dy the Doaru or arDltratlOn | itself
 The ideal toward which we are all working with these treaties is the ulti- mate aim of an arbitral court to which we shall submit our international con-
 troversies with the same freedom and the
 same dependence on the judgment in
 case of domestic counts.
 Steadily throughout the world the bur
 den of the creation of armies and fleets
 has grown heavier and heavier. steadily
 the competition has grown more fierce
 and crushing upon the life and hopes of
 the people.
 But steadily, too, and of late even more rapidly has grown the hope that an escape of these burdens may be found. In this great movement we are the hope of the world.
 | "If the senate cannot now bind us to abide the Judgment of an arbitrai court as to whether a question is just it can never bind us. and if the Senate cannot
 bind us, the nation cannot bind us and
 this peace loving people is forever in- capable of taking a step along the great path which all the world wishes to tread and along which all the world thinks America best fitted to lead Boston, Mass. Septembe> 7.-President Taft arrived in Boston on his way 10 Beverly shortly after 8 o'clock tonight. On the way from Hartford the President made brief train-end speeches at Willim- antic and Putnam Conn.,, and was re- oeived with enthusiasm at each place. -----s-----------