No. 70.
Mr. Fish to General Schenck.
Your telegram of last night received this morning. We cannot understand the objections which Lord Granville raises. He raises new issues, but suggests nothing in the direction of an agreement. Criticism and objection without suggestions lead to no results, and do not give assurance of a desire to harmonize differing views.
You have informally suggested various modes of agreement, but Great Britain has met all with the demand to withdraw claims which we feel we were justified under the Treaty in presenting, while the obligations which Great Britain has in various forms proffered on her part have all been substantially the same, and have been vague, uncertain, ideal, and not likely ever to become available.
The Article proposed by the Senate is fair, candid, and reciprocal. This Government has endeavored to express its views, objects, and meaning with respect to the principle embodied therein in the correspondence which has taken place, and in the communications which you have had with Her Majesty’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.
As the proposed Article, if it is to become a Treaty, must be signed and be submitted to the Senate for approval, but two days remain within which that approval can be had, and the Treaty forwarded to London to enable the ratifications to be exchanged in time to be presented to the Arbitrators at their meeting in June.
Further explanations of the views of the Government seem, therefore} impossible to be interchanged between here and London; but you may be able to explain these views as they have been communicated to you from this Department.
The President is extremely anxious to preserve a Treaty embodying and giving practical application to the doctrine of arbitration as a mode of settling international differences, and for that end has been willing to make large concessions.
You will call the attention of Her Majesty’s Minister to the fact that unless the Treaty be signed and approved by the Senate, so that the President’s ratification can leave here the day after to-morrow and go by Saturday’s steamer, it cannot reach London in time to be there exchanged, and be presented to the Arbitrators at their meeting on 15th June.
The suggestion of another treaty to adjourn the meeting at Geneva seems impracticable. The Senate is in the last days of its session, with much important legislation pending, and every hour of its time preoccupied. In the absence of any indication of a disposition on the part of the British Government to suggest anything to which this Government could assent, it would be impossible to secure enough of the time of the Senate to agree to a treaty which promises only farther delay and procrastination.
I regret not to see an indication of a desire or disposition on the part of the British Government to come to an agreement which will be honorable to this Government.
If the British Government has any proposals to make they will be fairly considered, with the most sincere desire of a frank, friendly, and honorable agreement. We neither ask nor will consent to anything else.
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[Page 534]The tone of Lord Granville’s notes seems to assume that the Senate and this Government are to accept what Great Britain may have suggested. Our view is very different.