I know it has been said that arbitration is derogatory to sovereignty. I really fail to see how this can be said in Germany. Germany has already submitted a great political question between herself and Spain to arbitration, and the Emperor William I was himself the arbiter between the United States and Great Britain in the matter of our northwestern boundary.
Bear in mind again that it is only VOLUNTARY arbitration that is proposed, and that it will always rest with the German Emperor to decide what questions he will submit to the tribunal and what he will not.
It has also been said that arbitration proceedings would give the enemies of Germany time to put themselves in readiness for war; but if this be feared in any emergency, the Emperor and his government are always free to mobilize the German army at once.
As you are aware, what is seriously proposed here now, in the way of arbitration, is not a tribunal constantly in session, but a system under which each of the signatory powers shall be free to choose, for a limited time, from an international court, say two or more judges who can go to The Hague if their services are required, but to be paid only while actually in session here; such payment to be made by the litigating parties.
As to the machinery, the plan is that there shall be a dignified body composed of the diplomatic representatives of the various signatory powers, to sit at The Hague, presided over by the Netherlands minister of foreign affairs, and to select and to control such secretaries and officers as may be necessary for the ordinary conduct of affairs.
Such council would receive notice from powers having differences with each other which are willing to submit the questions between them to a court, and would then give notice to the judges selected by the parties. The whole of the present plan, except some subordinate features of little account, which can easily be stricken out, is voluntary. There is nothing whatever obligatory about it. Every signatory power is free to resort to such a tribunal or not, as it may think best. Surely a concession like this may well be made to the deep and wide sentiment throughout the world in favor of some possible means of settling controversies between nations other than by bloodshed.
Pardon me for earnestly pressing upon you these facts and considerations. I beg that you will not consider me as going beyond my province. I present them to you as man to man, not only in the interest of good relations between Germany and the United States, but of interests common to all the great nations of the earth,—of their common interest in giving something like satisfaction to a desire so earnest and wide-spread as that which has been shown in all parts of the world for arbitration.
I remain, dear Baron von Bulow,
Most respectfully and sincerely yours,
(Sgd.) ANDREW D. WHITE.
P. S. Think how easily, if some such tribunal existed, your government and mine could refer to it the whole mass of minor questions which our respective parliamentary bodies have got control of, and entangled in all sorts of petty prejudices and demagogical utterances; for instance, Samoa, the tonnage dues, the sugar-bounty question, the most-favored-nation clause, etc., etc., which keep the two countries constantly at loggerheads. Do you not see that submission of such questions to such a tribunal as is now proposed, so far from being derogatory to sovereignty, really relieves the sovereign and the Foreign Office of the most vexatious fetters and limitations of parliamentarianism. It is not at all unlikely that such a court would decide in your favor; and if so, every thoughtful American would say, "Well and good; it appears that, in spite of all the speeches in Congress, we were wrong." And the matter would then be ended with the good-will of all parties. (Sgd.) A.D.W.
It is indeed a crisis in the history of the conference, and perhaps in the history of Germany. I can only hope that Bulow will give careful attention to the considerations which Munster and myself press upon him.