People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1895 — BRITAIN IS WARNED. [ARTICLE]

BRITAIN IS WARNED.

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND’S MESSAGE ON VENEZUELA. European Nations Hare No Rights on American Soil —Message Well Received in Senate and Hoase —Comments of the American and British Press. Washington, Dec. 18. —The President yesterday transmitted to congress a message on the Venezuelan controversy, together with the correspondence of Secretary Olney, Ambassador Bayard and the Marquis of Salisbury. The President's message follows: To the, congress:—ln my annual message addressed to the congress on the 3d inst, I called attention to the pending boundary controversy between Great Britain and the Republic of Venezuela, and recited the substance of a representation made by this government to her Britannic majesty’s government suggesting reasons why such dispute should be submitted to arbitration for settlement t and inquiring whether it would be so submitted. The answer of the British government, which was then awaited, has since been received, and, together with the dispatch to which it is a reply, is hereto appended. Such reply is embodied in two communications addressed by the British prime minister to Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British ambassador at this capital. It will be seen that one of these communications is devoted exclusively to observations upon the Monroe doctrine, and claims that in the present instance a new and strange extension and development of this doctrine is insisted on by the United States, that the reasons justifying an appeal to the doctrine enunciated by President Monroe are generally inapplicable “to the state of things in which we live in the present day,” and especially inapplicable to a controversy involving the boundary line between Great Britain and Venezuela.

Without attempting extended arguments in reply to these positions it may not be amiss to suggest that the doctrine upon which we stand is strong and sound because its enforcement is important to our peace and safety as a nation and is essential to the integrity of our free institutions and the tranquil maintenance of our distinctive form of government. It was intended to apply to every stage of our national life and cannot become obsolete while our republic endures. If the balance of power is justly a cause for jealous anxiety among the governments of the old world and a subject for our absolute noninterference, none the less is an observance of the Monroe doctrine of vital concern to our people and their government. If a European power, by an extension of its boundaries, takes possession of the territory of one of our neighboring republics against its will and in derogation of its rights, it is difficult to see why, to that extent, such European power does not thereby attempt to extend its system of government to that portion of this continent which is thus taken. This is the precise action which President Monroe declared to be “dangerous to our peace and safety,” and it can make no difference whether the European system is extended by an advance of frontier or otherwise. Practically the principle for which we contend has peculiar, if not exclusive, relation to the United States. It may not have been admitted-in so many words to the code of international law, but since in international counsels every nation is entitled to the rights belonging to it, if the enforcement of the Monroe doctrine is something we may justly claim it has its place in the code of international law as certainly and as securely as if it were specifically mentioned, and when the United States is a suitor before the high tribunal that administers international law the question to be determined is whether or not we present claims which the justice of that code of law can find to be right and valid. The Monroe doctrine finds its recognition in those principles of international law which are based Upon the theory that every nation shall have its rights protected and its just claims enforced. In the belief that the doctrine for which we contend was clear and definite; that it was founded upon substantial considerations and involved our safety and welfare; that it was fully applicable to our present conditions and to the state of the world’s progress and that it was directly related to the pending controversy, and without any conviction as to the final merits of the dispute, but anxious to learn in a satisfactory and conclusive manner whether Great Britain sought, under a claim of boundary, to extend her possessions on this continent without right, or whether she merely sought possession of territory fairly included within her lines of ownership, this government proposed to the government of Great Britain a resort to arbitration as the proper means of settling the question, to the end that a vexatious boundary dispute between the two contestants might be determined, and our exact standing and relation in respect to the controversy might be made clear. It will be seen from the correspondence herewith submitted that this proposition has been declined by the Brit-

ish government upon grounds which, under the circumstances, seem to me to be far from satisfactory. It is deeply disappointing that such an appeal, actuated by the most friendly feelings toward both nations diree tlv concerned, addressed to the sense of justice and to the magnanimity of one of the great powers of the world, and touching its relations to one comparatively weak and small, should have produced no better results. The course to be pursued by this government in view of the present condition does not appear to admit of serious doubt Having labored faithfully for many years to induce Great Britain to submit this dispute to impartial arbitration, and having been now finally apprised of her refusal to do so, nothing remains but to accept the situation, to recognize its plain requirements and deal with it accordingly. Great Britain’s present proposition has never thus far been regarded as admissible by Venezuela, though any adjustment of the boundary which that country may deem for her advantage and may enter into of her own free will cannot, of course, be objected to by the United States. Assuming, however, that the attitude of Venezuela will remain unchanged the dispute has reached such a stage as to make it now incumbent with sufficient certainty for its justification what is the true divisional line between the republic of Venezuela and British Guiana. In order that such an examination should be prosecuted in a thorough and satisfactory manner I suggest that the congress make an appropriation for the expenses of a commission to be appointed by the executive, who shall make the necessary investigation and report upon the matter with the least possible delay. When such report is made and accepted it will, in my opinion, be the duty of the United States to resist by every means in its power as a willful 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 belong to Venezuela. In making these recommendations I am fully alive to the responsibility incurred and keenly realize all the consequences that may follow. lam 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 art 3 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-re-spect and honor beneath which is shielded and defended a people’s safe-

ty and greatness. GROVER CLEVELAND. Executive Mansion. Dec. 17. Accompanying the President’s message is the correspondence on the subject. It starts with Secretary Olney’s now celebrated note reopening the negotiations with Great Britain, looking to the arbitration of the boundary dispute, bears date of July 20 last and is addressed to Mr. Bayard. The secretary begins by stating that the President has given much anxious thought to the subject and has not reached a conclusion without a lively sense of its great importance as well as of the serious possibility involved in any action now to be taken. He then comments on the long duration of the boundary dispute, the “indefinite” claims of both parties and “the continuous growth of the undefined British claims,” the fate of the various attempts at arbitration of the controversy and the part in the matter heretofore taken by the United States. He shows that the British claims since the Schomburg line was run have moved the frontier of British Guiana farther and farther to the westward of the line proposed by Lord Aberdeen in 1844. The secretary lays it down as a canon of international law that a nation may justly interpose in a controversy between other nations whenever “what is done or proposed by any of the parties primarily concerned is a serious and direct menace to its own integrity, tranquility or welfare.” The propriety of the rule, when applied in good faith, will not be questioned in any quarter, though, he says, it has been given a wide scope and too often made a cloak for schemes of wanton spoliation and aggrandizement. This leads him up to an elaborate review of the Monroe doctrine, and the secretary, stating that the proposition that America is no part open to colonization has long been conceded, says that our present concern is with the other practical application of the Monroe doctrine, viz., That American nonintervention in Europe necessarily implied European nonintervention in American affairs, the disregard of which is to be deemed an act of unfriendliness toward the United States. Hijs position on the Monroe doctrine laid (down, Secretary Olney goes at some length into the Venezuelan dispute!, affirming that the British claim in two years apparently has expanded som«3 33,000 square miles, so as to command the mouth of the Orinoco, and dismissing as valueless the- contention that Great Britain’s possession of Venezuela gives it any right to be

treatecf as an American state. He shows where Great Britain has arbitrated other boundary dispute*, and declares that it, in effect, says to Venezuela: “You are not strong enough to get anything by force, and we won’t arbitrate unless you first give up a part of the territory.” This, he says, amounts to invasion and conquest. “There is but one feasible mode of determining the merits of the question, and that is peaceable arbitration. Great Britain has shown in various instances that she was willing to arbitrate her political and sovereign rights, when the interests or territory involved were not of controlling magnitude; thus she arbitrated the extent of her colonial possessions with the United States, twice with Portugal, once with Germany, and perhaps in other instances.” Mr. Bayard is directed to read the communication to Lord Salisbury and ask a definite decision regarding arbitration. The President hopes that the conclusion will be on the side of arbitration, but If he is disappointed, “a result not to be anticipated, and in his judgment calculated to greatly embarrass the future relations between this country an<T Great Britain,” he wishes to be acquainted with the fact at such early date as will enable him to lay the whole subject before Congress in his next annual message.