No. 68.
Sir E.
Thornton to Earl Granville.1
[From British Blue Book “North America,” No. 9, (1872,) p. 27.]
With regard to the alterations which Her Majesty’s Government desires should be made in the supplementary Article as recommended by the recent decision of the Senate, Mr. Fish said that it was out of the power of the United States Government to accede to them, or indeed to [Page 532] any change of the words, as they had been decided upon by the Senate. He informed me that he had himself had a long discussion with the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate upon the subject, and that he was convinced, from the nature of that discussion, that it would be in vain to submit to the Senate the alterations now transmitted by your Lordship; for that it had been expressly intended by the Committee that the principle should be enlarged, and that the non-admittance of indirect claims should be extended to all such claims, and should not be limited to those of that particular class which were specified in the contention of Her Majesty’s Government.
These views of the Committee had been fully supported by the Senate, who considered that the adoption of the wider principle with regard to indirect claims would be an equivalent for the consent given by the President that he would make no claim for indirect losses before the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva. He was convinced, from his knowledge of the feelings of the Senate upon the subject, that any further appeal to that body would have no effect whatever.
From a great deal that I have heard from other quarters, and from the extreme difficulty with which the sanction of the Senate has been obtained to the supplementary Article, even as modified by it, I cannot but acquiesce in Mr. Fish’s opinion that any further reference to the Senate would be of no avail.
- The substance of this dispatch was received by telegraph on the 28th of May.↩