HC Deb 13 May 1872 vol 211 cc654-65
MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, I have fore-borne to place upon the Notice Paper for this evening any Notice of my intention to make at half-past 4 o'clock the usual Motion with regard to the Adjournment of the House over the Whitsuntide holidays from fear that, had I done so, it might have been thought the Government were disposed to exercise pressure upon the House with regard to the course which it may think fit to take after it has heard the explanation I am about to make with reference to the Treaty of Washington. For the same reason I shall forbear to make any Motion for the Adjournment in offering that statement to the House, because it is a matter which we shall leave entirely in the hands of the House itself and of individual Members. I shall, therefore, simply appeal to the indulgence of hon. Members to allow me to make a statement in respect of a subject of great and general interest. I may also say that Her Majesty's Government have arrived at a conclusion—the reasons for which I am about to lay before the House—that the time has not yet come for laying Papers in reference to this subject upon the Tables of the two Houses of Parliament. In what I have to say I shall not enter into any controversial or defensive matters. The House has with remarkable and, as we think, most wise—but, certainly, with very signal—for- bearance, refrained from discussing a variety of matters with regard to the Treaty of Washington which are admitted to be of general interest, which are collateral to the issue under discussion with the United States, and which may form, either now or at some future time, the subject of detail, and, possibly, of hostile comment. But that forbearance which has been practised on both sides of the House—by the right hon. Gentleman opposite and his Friends, and likewise by those who sit behind me—has relieved the Government from any difficulty which they might have felt had they appeared on the present occasion as parties accused; and, therefore, I hold it to be no part of my duty under these circumstances to perplex the House or load the brief statement which I have to make with reference to matters of that class. I therefore will give a very brief narrative to the House, commencing from the time when Her Majesty's Government, assembled in Cabinet on the 18th of January, took this question into their consideration. I will not refer to the preliminary communications which had passed between my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Legal Advisers of the Crown, and afterwards between him and myself, as well as my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor; but I will begin, as I before observed, from the 18th of January, on which day the whole subject raised by the American Case, and by those parts of it which referred to the Indirect Claims in particular, came under the consideration of the Cabinet. On that day we arrived at the conclusion that those Indirect Claims were not within the scope of the Arbitration to which we had agreed, and therefore we felt that it would not be possible for us to be parties to their submission to the Arbitrators at Geneva. On the 3rd of February, as is known to the House, we addressed a friendly communication to the Government of the United States, in which it was stated that according to the holding of Her Majesty's Government those Claims were not included within the limits of the reference, and the purport of that communication—the essential part of it—was made known to Parliament in the Speech from the Throne at the commencement of the Session. These declarations and these opinions formed within the Cabinet have been the basis of the whole of our subsequent proceedings. We have not found it necessary, in a formal manner, to go beyond them, and at no time up to the moment at which I speak have we in the slightest degree receded or departed from them. Now, subsequently to the despatch of the 3rd of February, the House is aware that several communications relating to the general argument had passed between the two Governments, and I will not scruple to state, for the information of the House, the general purport of those communications, and especially as I can undertake to do this in a very few words. The despatch of the 3rd of February did little more than communicate the opinions and the convictions entertained by the British Government, and the despatch of the American Government in reply, which I think was addressed to us on a late day in February, and which was received by us about the 12th or the 14th of March, in like manner did not enter into the argument at large, but it signified the dissent of the President of the United States from the conclusions of the British Government as to the legitimacy of the topic of the Indirect Claims as a portion of the American Claims to be submitted to the Arbitrators at Geneva. In that despatch the President observed that he was in ignorance of the grounds and reasons upon which the opinion of the British Government had been founded, and we, interpreting that expression on the part of the President as a friendly invitation to us to give an explanation of those reasons, considered the despatch which was addressed by Lord Granville on the 20th of March to General Schenck, in which we went into them at length. The heads of our argument were these—We contended that the reference of the Indirect Claims to the Arbitrators at Geneva was not within the Treaty of Washington as it stood; we contended that, separately from the terms of that Treaty, as it was not within its terms so neither had it been within the intention of the parties that those claims should be referred; and, apart from these two contentions, we endeavoured to show that as it was not within the terms of the Treaty nor within the intention of the parties that they should be so referred, so likewise there were considerations, drawn from the reason of the Case considered more at large, which fortified the same conclusion and supported us in the general doctrine that these Indirect Claims formed no part of the subject-matter which we had agreed to refer. Besides these branches of the argument, of which I have given a very rude and small outline, there was a portion of the despatch, or rather a memorandum annexed to it, in which we thought it wise to indicate that these Claims, if they could he entertained at all in principle—and it was the question of principle on which we had really joined issue—were likewise of an amount warranting, and more than warranting, the largest statement that had been made with respect to them, although some of those statements appear to have caused astonishment on the other side of the water. Of course, we did not allow it to be supposed that our objection was based upon a question of amount, although we referred to that point, and gave some evidence from American sources of authority which supported the opinions which we gave utterance to in regard to it. That was on the 20th of March. On the 16th of April Mr. Fish sent an answer in the nature of an argumentative reply to the despatch. With some portions of the argument advanced by us he dealt in detail; with respect to others he was content to state only that, according to the view of the Government of the United States, the whole subject was a fit and proper one to be argued before the Arbitrators at Geneva. The tone of this answer, I am bound to say, was friendly throughout; but on the receipt of it we felt it to be our duty to communicate to Parliament—and we did communicate to Parliament—that, as far as its terms were concerned, it had not afforded to us any opening which would advance a friendly and honourable settlement of this great question. But before the answer was in the hands of the British Government, a new opening had been found. A communication had been made by the Minister of the United States to Lord Granville, which was to the effect that, in the opinion of his Government, there was a method of settlement which, if it were proposed by the Government of Her Majesty, it might be open to the Government of the United States to consider and to accept, and which, in the view of the United States' Government, would be perfectly honourable and satisfactory to both countries. This suggestion of the Minister of the United States contemplated a proceeding not by any new international engagement in the nature of a Treaty, but by correspondence between the two Governments, or by what is commonly called an exchange of Notes. Upon this information we immediately entered on a consideration of the detailed proceedings which might be adopted, and, as was to be expected in the development of those details, various points emerged and came more fully into view as the matter matured which, although there never was a departure on the part of either party from the general basis sketched out by the Minister of the United States, yet, on the whole, tended to give to the contemplated proceeding more of a substantive character than had been in the view of the American Government when it was originally projected and suggested on their part. That being so, upon the 8th of May—that is to say, upon Wednesday last, we learnt, on the direct authority of the American Government, that, in order to meet the views which had been stated on our part, it would be necessary, as they exceeded the powers of the President, that a reference should be made to the Senate, and that that power also should be called in aid, with a view to a satisfactory and complete settlement of the case. This was upon the 8th instant, and the House will recollect that I am now upon a series of communications which have been conducted entirely by telegraph; and that valuable and all important as that instrument is for certain purposes, all who have been concerned in difficult matters of business are very well aware that the conveyance of explanations, of motives, of those shadings of thought and impression which are very often vital to the true comprehension of the matter at issue becomes extremely difficult when that mode of communication is adopted. We were not made precisely aware on the 8th of May of the grounds on which this reference to the Senate would be requisite. The explanations, however, of which we were in possession by the evening of the 9th made it perfectly clear to us; and, as I have stated, it was a project as it had been sketched by the British Government on the basis suggested by General Schenck which rendered the reference necessary. It was at a late hour on Thursday evening—indeed, I believe the withdrawal of Members of the Cabinet from this bench after midnight was noticed by hon. Members of the House—that we proceeded to contemplate the question on that precise point. On the next day—that is to say, on Friday last, acting on the suggestion of the Government of the United States, that they were perfectly willing to deal with the question in this aspect, as a matter requiring the assistance of the Senate, we placed our views in the shape of that which might become an Article, and might be the subject of an International contract between the two countries. This draft, together with a covering letter, was forwarded on Friday evening by my noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the American Minister, and though it was a document, with the covering letter, of some length, it was immediately telegraphed by him to the Government of the United States. It was taken into consideration by that Government on Saturday, and yesterday morning the Minister of the United States was in a condition to inform my noble Friend that that proposition of the British Government, framed as I have stated, was entertained by the President of the United States, and would be submitted by him to the Senate for its approval. Now, let it be understood that, while I have stated the exact and literal truth upon this matter, I am anxious not to overstate anything. The communication between the President and Senate of the United States is a strictly confidential communication. It is entertained by the Senate not in its legislative, but in its executive, capacity, and it is entertained by it not as a public body, but almost, if I may so say, as a portion of the Cabinet of the President pro hâc vice, and in what is termed in America a secret Session. Consequently, although in possession of the Senate, the proposition in its terms is at this time a strictly confidential communication. This much, however, we are justified in stating—that the course taken by the President in making known this draft to the Senate distinctly implies his approval, conditional only on the concurrence and approval of the Senate. I may also state that we have no reason to complain of the slightest disposition to delay on the part of the Government of the United States, for this proposal, which was received through the telegraph in America on Saturday, is at this moment that I am now speaking under the consideration of the Senate. Of course, it is not for us to say at what time that consideration will terminate; but we are told that probably in two or three days a decision will be arrived at by the Senate on its general character and import. The Senate, I need hardly remind the House, is the perfectly free deliberative organ of a perfectly free as well as great country. I cannot forestall its judgment. It must be for the House, taking into view the action of the President and the whole facts of the case as furnished by the description I have given, to consider what are the present circumstances and aspects of the negotiation. I hope the House will not think me unreasonable in observing that we have not the same opportunity of communicating confidentially with the Houses of Parliament as the President has with the Senate; and I hope also that I shall not go beyond the bounds of due respect when I express the opinion, not on my own part merely, but on the part of the Government as a whole, that we trust nothing will be said or done to interfere with the perfectly free and dispassionate consideration by the Senate of this great matter, now advanced, as we trust, so near to its maturity. I have said we shall not move the Adjournment of the House for the Recess in any manner which might appear to show a disposition to press our opinion unduly upon the House; but we wish, notwithstanding, to make an appeal to the perfectly free judgment of the House. We feel, and feel deeply, that in these matters it is not only the Executive Governments on both sides of the water that are concerned, but that it is only by concurrent prudence and circumspection on the part of all the great Powers that act for and influence the destinies of free peoples that delicate and difficult negotiations of this kind can be conducted to a happy issue. I will say nothing for ourselves, for I could say nothing beyond that which all men know of every British Government—that under all circumstances they will do their best; but I will venture to say this—that the House of Commons, by its remarkable prudence and self-restraint, has powerfully contributed to a favourable result; and that if that favourable result shall happily he attained, it will in no small degree be due to the wisdom, circumspection, and self-restraint of the body which I have the honour to address. Let me say, also, that we shall not do justice to the case if we do not express the strong sense we entertain of the friendly feeling which has prompted the conduct of the Government of the United States, and which in a degree certainly not less remarkable has actuated that great and free-speaking people. Had this House thought fit, by the exhibition of menaces and threats, by premature declarations of what we would do and would not do in contingencies which had not arrived, to arouse the patriotism and public spirit of that great country beyond the Atlantic into a temper of exasperation, I certainly do not think we should have reached the point at which we now happily stand; and I feel confident that the House which has so long, under circumstances so difficult, and now for a period of very nearly four months, exercised that self-command, will at the moment when already it appears to reap its reward persist in that line of conduct even to the end. I trust, therefore, there will be an opinion that while the free judgment of the House upon the whole proceedings of the Government from first to last must be reserved, and may at any fit time be freely expressed, the position of the question at the present moment, when it is no longer in the hands of those who are responsible to you—when their definite proposal, by which in spirit and in letter they are bound, has passed across the ocean, and is now before the tribunal on which, as far as America is concerned, it depends authoritatively to decide—the position of the question is such that it would not be by the debates of Parliament, if I may presume to say so, that Members of Parliament should desire to exercise an opinion upon their deliberations. I think that, feeling towards the United States the respect which we should desire them to feel towards us, we should be ambitious of signalizing in every way our anxiety that not even a semblance of interference by those expressions should pass from among us to appear in any or the slightest degree to derogate from the positive, absolute, and perfect political and moral liberty with which the authorities of America will now arrive, I trust, at a very early conclusion. I take leave again to tender on the part of the Government the expression of our thanks to Parliament for this remarkable forbearance, together with the assurance that we do not misunderstand it—that we do not take it as a compliment, or as implying in the slightest degree anything more than an enlightened regard to the great public interests which are involved in the present issue. For this is, after all, a very great issue, for it is an issue upon a matter which in itself is of very great importance between two of the most powerful and free and energetic nations upon the face of the earth; and great in itself as between them, it is greater yet, because it involves the interests of every other country, and therefore that extraordinary liveliness and movement of mind which we cannot but have witnessed in the Press of the Continent with respect to this diplomatic controversy is easily accounted for when we bear in mind that they know as well as we do that, mutatis mutandis, any other two Powers in the world may at any time stand in the position which England and America now occupy with respect to the principles at issue. But this importance is greatest of all with respect to its bearing on the subject of arbitration, and upon the future interests of the world, for England and America undertook a great responsibility in the face of all other nations, when they attempted to apply, after some recent discouragements, this principle of amicable settlement to a great controversy between two high-spirited nations; and if these two nations succeed in giving effect to what undoubtedly is the desire sincerely entertained, and cordially entertained alike on the one side and on the other, something, I think, will be achieved for the benefit of the cause of peace. If, on the other hand, they should fail, however the case may stand as between the parties, they conjointly will suffer great discredit in the face of all civilized nations; and their failure in this great case of peaceful settlement will be nothing less in our judgment than a misfortune to mankind. It is, therefore, that we earnestly hope that that admirable control of feeling and temper, by which such free scope and such ample advantage have thus far been left to the Government as the trustees of the public interest in their endeavours to bring about a satisfactory settlement of this matter, may still be continued. I have stated in brief terms, but in terms which. I hope were not devoid of meaning, the basis on which the proceedings were commenced in the months of January and February last. From that basis we have not departed; from that basis—practicable, as we trust, for the views of the two Governments to be placed in substantial harmony and conciliation—and with that prospect before them, we trust we may make the suggestion to the House—which, undoubtedly for our own sakes, we should have no title whatever to prefer—that they will be contented to wait, for the short time that yet remains, the result, which can hardly be otherwise than decisive; and which I hope it is not too sanguine a temper on my part if I venture to say that there is every probability that we may be enabled to recognize as honourable and satisfactory.

MR. DISRAELI

Sir, in the critical state of affairs as regards our relations with the United States of America, and which now has subsisted for five months, I think there have been two duties for Parliament to fulfil. The first was to give fair play to the Government, constituted of whatever party or materials, placed in such a situation—and I may say, without at all binding ourselves to any approbation of the course they have pursued, or as to our ultimate decision, that we have given them that constitutional support which they had a right, I think, in their difficult position to look forward to. Our second part has been at the same time, consistently with that line, to assert the policy with respect to the matters in question on which I believe the great majority of the people of this country are decided. I have, Sir, myself been influenced by these two feelings, and I believe I may say that I represent accurately the feelings of hon. Gentlemen generally on this side of the House. Whatever may be our opinions as to the general policy of the Government in this matter, when once the great embarrassment had occurred we resolved to give them the utmost indulgence so far as the forms of the House and the general conduct of party proceedings are concerned; and at the same time we wished to assert the policy which we think, generally speaking, they ought to have followed. I collect to-night, from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that he and his Colleagues have prepared a distinct proposition, which has been made to the Government of the United States—that that proposition has been accepted by the President of the United States; and that in order that it may be ultimately adopted as the solution of these difficulties, it is at this moment submitted to the Senate of the United States. That is what I collect generally from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. That being the case, I cannot for a moment hesitate to express my own opinion—and so far as my opinion can influence others I wish to express it most distinctly—that we are in duty bound to continue that forbearance which we have already shown. It is quite clear from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that it is utterly impossible for us to give any opinion, under the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, as to the course which Her Majesty's Government have pursued. It is quite clear from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that there have been perhaps even voluminous despatches, and everyone must feel that our opinion as to the policy of the Government must depend upon the precise language contained in the propositions which they have made to the Government of the United States. Everyone, therefore, must feel that it is totally out of our power, without we were in possession of the precise contents of those authentic documents, to offer an opinion at this moment. At the same time, I must express my hope that these Papers will be placed upon the Table of the House without any unnecessary delay, for when we are in possession of these documents, we shall be able to form an opinion as to the course of Her Majesty's Government. I trust, however, that, whatever difference of opinion as to that course may prevail, only one result will accrue from these labours of Her Majesty's Government and from this forbearance of Parliament—I trust we shall find a settlement of the question which will be satisfactory, not only to the interests of both countries, but which will in every respect satisfy the honour of England. I must again hope there will be no unnecessary delay in the production of these Papers, for until we are in possession of them, we can form no opinion as to the course of Her Majesty's Government; but until then I am clear, under the circumstances de- tailed by the right hon. Gentleman, that the conduct of Parliament should he—as it has been for a considerable period, one of complete forbearance.

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, the desire of the Government will be to lay the Papers on the Table at the earliest possible moment. ["The Adjournment!"] I think it would be irregular to propose the Motion for the Adjournment now; but I will propose it, when it comes on in its turn.