As soon as

fish Maximilian as Emperor. the war was over we forced France out of Mexico, and the unfortunate Maximilian, an amiable and brave man, but of less than mediocre capacity, was executed by his subjects and offered up as a sacrifice to his incautious reliance upon the French Emperor and to his own ignorance of the peril of infringing the Monroe Doctrine.

Yet, despite all this, the people of the United States cared very little about what France had done, and felt bitterly all that the English had said. The attitude of the French Government during our Civil War, which there is no reason to suppose was the attitude of the French people, no doubt caused Americans generally to sympathize with Germany in the war of 1870, but except for that sympathy we regarded with great indifference the French treatment of the United States during the Civil War. Very different was the relation to England. As soon as the war was over the era of apology began on the part of England, finding its first expression in Tom Taylor's well-known verses upon the death of Lincoln. The acknowledgment of their mistakes, however, produced but slight impression in the United States, where there was a universal determination to exact due reparation for the conduct of England, and especially for the depredations of the Alabama and the other cruisers let loose from British shipyards to prey upon our commerce. Attempts were at once made to settle these differences, but the Johnson-Clarendon treaty was rejected by the Senate, and when Grant came to the Presidency there was a strong feeling, represented by Mr. Sumner, in favor of making n demands on England, but of obtaining our redress by taking possession of Canada. With a veteran army of a million men and a navy of over seven hundred vessels, including some seventy ironclads, the task would not have been a difficult one. President Grant and Mr. Fish, however, decided upon another course, and were really unwilling to adopt a policy which, however justifiable, might have carried the country into another

would satisfy Americans and so far as possible heal the wounds inflicted by England's attitude and by English utterances during the war. In the first article of the treaty of 1871, which followed, it is said:

'Her Britannic Majesty has authorized her high commissioners and plenipotentiaries to express in a friendly spirit the regret felt by her Majesty's Government for the escape under any circumstances of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports and for the depredations committed by those vessels."

It must have been a serious trial not only for a Ministry but for a proud and powerful nation thus formally and officially to apologize for its past conduct, and yet, unless England was ready for war and for the loss of Canada, no other method seemed possible. greatly to England's credit and to the credit of the Government of that day that they were willing to express their regret for having done wrong.

It is

The treaty established a court of arbitration to consider and pass upon the claims. It also provided for referring the differences in regard to the line of our boundary through the Fuca Straits to the Emperor of Germany, who subsequently made an award wholly in favor of the United States. The treaty also dealt with many other questions, including fishery rights, the navigation of the St. Lawrence and of Lake Michigan, the use of canals and the conveyance of merchandise in bond through the United States. In due course the claims were taken before the Geneva tribunal. The arbitration came dangerously near shipwreck, owing to the projection into it of the indirect claims, so called, which were urged in a powerful speech by Mr. Sumner in the Senate, but the tribunal wisely excluded them, and the case came to a decision, an award of $15,500,000 being made to the United States for the damages caused by the Alabama and her sister ships.

So far as the official relations of the two countries were concerned, the Treaty of Washington restored them to the situation which had existed before the Civil War. Once again we were, officially speaking, on good and friendly terms with Great Britain, but the feeling left among the people of the United States by England's attitude remained unchanged, and the harsh and bitter things which had been said in England during our days of trial and suffering still rankled deeply. This was something which only the

passage of time could modify, and the wounds which had been made took long to heal, although the healing process was facilitated by the tact that the Civil War had made the people of the United States profoundly inditTerent to foreign criticism. There was, more

no dish between the countries until vere after the Treaty of Washington. and when the next dificulty arose it came not Frock my mumeciate difference between EngFund and the United States, but grew out of Fogli hanvardon of the Monroe Doctrine

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years there had been a disherween England and Venezuela as the beaundary between that country and The P 氮 oms of England in British Guiana. uld work and distracted by revolu hem had sought more than once for arbitrawhich England would not grant. On contrary, the British Government had chily pushed its line forward and exanded its claims until it was found that it was gradually absorbing a large part of what did always been considered Venezuelan Teratory. Venezuela had broken off diploin the relations, but nothing had succeeded in checking the English advances. The offer of the good offices of the United States had been equally fruitless, and finally the matter reached a crisis, and Mr. Cleveland, on December 17, 1895, sent in his famous Message. After reviewing the Venezuelan question and the efforts that we had made toward a peaceful settlement, the President recommended that an American commission be appointed to examine the question and report upon the matter. He said that when such report was made it would be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power as a wilful aggression upon its rights and interests the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands or the exercise of governmental jurisdiction over any territory which after investigation we have determined of right belongs to Venezuela." The Message concluded with the following sentence: “I am, nevertheless, firm in my conviction that, while it is a grievous thing to contemplate the two great English-speaking peoples of the world as being otherwise than friendly competitors in the onward march of civilization and strenuous and worthy rivals in all the arts of peace, there is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and

honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness." The language employed by the President was vigorous and determined. At the time it was thought rough. England was surprised, and operators in the stock market were greatly annoyed. The closing words of the Message, which was a very able one, do not seem quite so harsh to-day as they did at the time when they were read to Congress. President Cleveland, moreover, however much Wall Street might cry out, had the country with him, and no one to-day, I think, can question the absolute soundness of his position.

With the possessions of any European Power in the Western Hemisphere we, of course, did not meddle, but it was the settled policy of the country that those possessions should not be extended or new ones created. The forcible seizure of American territory by a European Power would be, of course, an obvious violation of the Monroe Doctrine, which this country believes essential to its safety; but the gradual grasping of American territory on the basis of shadowy, undetermined, and constantly widening claims, differed from forcibie seizure only in degree. If the land in dispute belonged to Great Britain, we had nothing whatever to say, but so long as it was in controversy the United States had the right to demand that that controversy should be settled by a proper tribunal under whose decision the world should know just what belonged to England and what to Venezuela. President Cleveland's strong declaration surprised England, but it brought her to terms. She woke up to the fact that the day had long since passed when the United States could be trifled with on any American question, and the soundness of Mr. Cleveland's judgment was shown by the fact that within a year the question was referred to a tribunal which met in Paris and which consisted of two Americans, two Englishmen, and one Russian jurist. The American judges were Chief Justice Fuller and Mr. Justice Brewer, of the Supreme Court. They went to Paris with the somewhat innocent idea that they were to hear the case and decide it on its merits, exactly as they decided a case in their own Supreme Court. They found, however, that the two English judges had no such conception of their functions. but were there as representatives of England, holding the positions of advocates instead of judges. The result was that the decision rested with the fifth man, Mr. Martens, and

he, apparently under instructions not strictly judicial, was prepared to decide entirely in favor of England, although the English case for a large part of the claim was of the most shadowy character. It was very important, however, to England that the award should be signed by all the arbitrators, and that which was most essential to Venezuela was to preserve her control of the mouths of the Orinoco. The American arbitrators consented to sign the award if the mouths of the Orinoco were left to Venezuela, and this was done, all the rest of the disputed territory going to England. If the rest of the territory belonged to England, the mouths of the Orinoco also should have been hers. If the mouths of the Orinoco belonged to Venezuela, England was not entitled to a large part of what she received. In other words, the judgment of the arbitral tribunal was a compromise and not a decision on the merits of the case, in which it followed the course of most arbitrations and disclosed the weakness of which arbitral tribunals have hitherto nearly always been guilty. This failing is that they do not decide a case on its merits, but make a diplomatic compromise, giving something to each side. It is this tendency or practice of arbitral tribunals which has caused them to be distrusted, and especially in the United States, because, while the United States has no questions in Europe, Europe has many questions of interest in the Western Hemisphere, and the result has been on more occasions than one that the United States has been drawn into an arbitration where it could gain nothing and was certain to lose if any compromise was effected. In this particular instance, however, the result, which Mr. Cleveland desired and which he sought to reach by his Message was fully attained. The boundary was determined, the process of gradual encroachment on a weak American state under cover of daims more or less artificial and advanced by a powerful European nation was stopped, and an end was put once and for all to the plan of securing new American possessions by the insidious method of starting and developing claims and then refusing to have the claims settled and boundaries determined by any tribunal. Mr. Cleveland rendered a very great public service by his action and caused the Powers of Europe to understand and appreciate the force and meaning of the Monroe Doctrine as they had never done before.

Three years after President Cleveland's Venezuelan Message the United States was at war with Spain. Admiral Dewey's fleet had captured Manila, and the great European Powers hastened to send war-ships to the scene of action. Some of these vessels were more powerful than any which Admiral Dewey had in his fleet, and the German Admiral behaved in a way which came very near bringing on serious trouble between his country and the United States. Admiral Dewey's firmness put an end to the disagreeable attitude of the Germans, but he also received assurances of support from Captain Chichester, in command of the English ships, which were of great value. This almost open act of friendliness, which recalled the old days in China when Commodore Tatnall went to the aid of the English, declaring that blood was thicker than water," was merely representative of the attitude of the English Government. The sympathies of Europe were with Spain, but England stood by the United States, and this fact did more to wipe out the past and make the relations between the two countries what they should have been long before than all the years which had elapsed since the bitter days of the Civil War.

England's attitude, moreover, toward the United States during the war with Spain was only a part of the general policy of the Government then in control. When the Pan-. ama Canal, the interest in which had been steadily growing, reached a point where the United States was determined that the Canal should be built, it was found that the ClaytonBulwer Treaty was a stumbling-block to any movement on the part of the United States. The American feeling was so strong that Congress was only too ready to abrogate the treaty by its own action, but, the question being brought to the attention of Lord Salisbury, the English Government showed itself more than willing to join with the United States in superseding the ClaytonBulwer Treaty by a new one under which the United States should have a free hand in dealing with the Canal. The first HayPauncefote Treaty failed, owing chiefly to having incorporated in it a provision by which it was agreed that the Powers of Europe should be entitled to join in the neutralization of the Canal. This, on our part, was of course inviting the destruction of the Monroe Doctrine, and the Senate amended the treaty. England refused to accept the Senate amendments, but proceeded to make with us a

second treaty which conformed to the changes proposed by the Senate, and which was ratifed without opposition.

The policy manifested by the attitude of Frgiand in regard to the Canal question, which had followed upon the end of the Spanish War, was closely followed, and was indeed enlarged, by Mr. Balfour when he succeeded Lord Salisbury as Prime Minister. President McKinley, m his desire to settle all possic 'e outstanding questions with Great Butam questions which related entirely to Canada had brought about a meeting of an Anglo American commission in Washington. It became evident that all questions could be eastly arranged, with the exception of the Alaskan bowday, and upon that the difference was so shup that the commission adjourned without having reached amy conclusion at all in All the other dulerences remy dictio mapsed in devance but the Vaskan question become constantly more perilous. Nations, like men, will fight about the possession of Fund when they will night about nothing else, out the Miskin question, which caused a that at weling in the Northwest, was kly mywww hung the dangerous stage

A

ubun the boundary of Alaska to of commonal tribunal, consisting of three Amor me and three representatives of Canwhy und tocat Betim, ware made and ratified ment The Fooled representatives were budi men hed (madians and Lord Alver

the Ford Chief Justice of England. There we fully argued, and the decision w alumet wholly in favor of the contention

He Comed atates, which was owing the atom od Lord Alverstone, who deIn the main against the Canadian

ways, and, finally, the long-contested ques tion of our rights in the Newfoundland fish eries went to The Hague for determination under a treaty framed by Mr. Root.

All these important agreements which made for the best relations between Great Britain and the United States grew out of the attitude of England at the time of the Spanish War, and were due to the policy of which Mr. Balfour in particular, and Lord Lansdowne, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, were the chief exponents. In a speech at Manchester Mr. Balfour said:

The time may come-nay, the time must come-when some statesman of authority, more fortunate even than President Monroe, will lay down the doctrine that between English-speaking peoples war is impossible.

To that noble sentiment Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne strictly adhered, and to their action we owe the settlement of all these questions which have perplexed us with our northern neighbor, and, in consequence, the good relations which now exist between Great Britain and the United States, and which it is to be hoped will always continue. The policy might have been adopted in 1798 as well as in 1898, but Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne were the first English statesmen who not only saw, but put into effect, their belief that the true policy for England was to be friends with the United States, and that friendship could be brought about by treating the United States, not as had been the practice in the past, but as one great nation should always be treated by another. They came to us, it is true, in the hour of our success, but none the less they are entitled to a place in the memory of Americans with Burke and Fox and Chatham, with Cobden and with Bright, who did not forget the common language and the common aspirations for freedom in the days when the Americans were a little people struggling to exist, or in those still darker days when the United States was trying to preserve the unity of the great Nation which Washington had founded and which Lincoln was destined to save.

T

HE Spectator once overheard a little

girl telling a make-believe story to her dolls about a princess-doubtless appareled in her mind after a Blum drawing -who lived in a beautiful palace in a "great garden. In this garden, she informed the respectfully silent dolls, grew a—no, the -money tree. It was as singular as that in the Garden of Eden, and perhaps of the same genus, for its fruit was golden coins. Every branch bent with the weight of them, they shone in the sun, twinkling this way and *hat, jingling musically as they were stirred by the breeze of this magic garden, and if now and then one dropped and was picked up by a page or palace guard no one minded, for, like tropical oranges, more kept on growall the time. The Spectator thought of this little girl and her money tree when he stepped out on the porch on an October morning and saw the early sunlight glinting upon the burnished yellow leaves of the old back birch beyond the cliff's edge as they 'rembled in the wind; and in the midst of them at a blue jay-a sapphire bird in a gilded cage.

ing

This aged tree grows just in front of the tag upon whose summit the house is built. so that as the Spectator stands in his dooray he sees only a few feet of the trunk. surmounted by a gnarled and bushy crown whose nearness throws into still more remote nd pleasing perspective, as in an artist's drawing, the landscape of rocks and woods and distant fields that stretches away to the sky-line of Poppletown Hill; and that crown, green in spring, golden in autumn, blends with the sky aloft in a fringe of innumerable gray twigs. This hoary cap seems a natural ark of age and dignity. When, waterbucket in hand, one walks down the winding stairway-path descending from ledge to ledge between mossy rocks, one presently sees the dark column of its leaning trunk, and finds ne spring gushing from the crag-foot near its Poots. The base of this column is a mass of stones and knotty roots; its capital the spreading leafage which was level with our eyes above, and whose lowest branches are now sixty feet above our heads. A heap of hre-wood is piled negligently against it and nothing could be more natural. If the old tree could express feeling, it would perhaps tell us it would miss the companionship of the

slivery sticks were they taken away, for all its life it has been associated with these riven remnants of its brethren; but there is only a cord there now, when a thousand might safely lean their weight upon its sturdy support!

It would be a keen woodsman who, from a glance at its trunk alone, could name this relic of bygone conditions. The record of a hard youth and the wrinkles of age and misfortune have made such crowded scars upon its trunk that no room is left, at any rate on the lower half of the column, for that natural and distinctive growth of bark which in a tree of even life is a signature easily recognized. That this tree must be very old is plain, not only from the great girth of its bole, but from the fact that for at least threefourths of its height, which cannot be far short of a hundred feet, there is not a single limb, showing that it grew in a forest whose dense shade stunted and killed all the lower twigs; and now its top is a thick bunch of strong, irregular branches which, cramped for room at first. have suffered breakage year by year, during the long period since its sheltering mates were removed, by the buffeting of the winter gales. As becomes a subject so full of years, its crown is gray with dead and dying twigs, as has been noted, yet beneath them flourishes a mass of foliage, showing plentiful vigor. The roots still hold firmly to the rocks, still feed upon the rich muck, still drink of the spring whose surplus waters, clear and cool, bubble out of the soil beneath the old tree's shade and take the Spectator's daily blessing. Nor is his the only benison. A President of the United States has cooled his brow in its shadow; the Spectator has seen the two Johns of outdoor literatureJohn Burroughs and John Muir-leaning against its trunk while they talked ; and many another person of importance has it looked down upon.

What accident or purpose kept this tree from the ax when its neighbors were first cut off a century or more ago-for these rocky ridges have been timber-cutting ground ever since the Dutch first settled at Esopus and named them Schaffenberg-may be only conjectured; but the most natural guess is that it was a landmark in the most literal meaning of the term-a boundary mark. All over