The remaining objection interposed by Great Britain to the arbitration requested by Venezuela is based upon the fear that an award might be made in favor of the Venezuelan claim, in which case “a large and important territory which has for a long period been inhabited and occupied by Her Majesty’s subjects and treated as a part of the Colony of British Guiana would be severed from the Queen’s dominions.”
It first occurs to us that a contention may well be suspected of weakness when its supporters are unwilling to subject it to the test of impartial arbitration. Certain inquiries are also pertinent in this connection. Who were the British subjects who had long occupied the territory that might through arbitration be severed from the Queen’s dominions? How many of them began this occupancy during the more than forty years that the territory had been steadily and notoriously disputed? Did they enter upon this territory with knowledge of the dispute and against the warning of the government to which they owed allegiance, or were they encouraged and invited to such entry by agencies of that government who had full notice of the uncertainty of the British title? In one case, being themselves in the wrong, they were entitled to no consideration; in the other, the question of loss and indemnification should rest between them and their government, which had impliedly guaranteed them against disturbance. In any event, neither case presented a reason why Great Britain should take or possess the lands of Venezuela; nor did either case furnish an excuse for denying to Venezuela a fair and impartial adjudication of her disputed rights. By whom had this territory “been treated as a part of the Colony of British Guiana”? Surely not by Venezuela. On the contrary, she had persistently claimed it as her own, and had “treated” it as her own as far as she could and dared. England alone had treated it as a part of British Guiana; her immense power had enabled her to do this; and her decrees in her own favor as against her weak adversary undoubtedly promised greater advantages than arbitration could possibly assure.
III
The Secretary of State of Venezuela, soon after this refusal of Great Britain to submit the boundary dispute to arbitration, in a despatch dated the second day of April, 1884, still urged that method of settlement, citing precedents and presenting arguments in its favor; and in conclusion he asked the minister of the English Government at Caracas “to have the goodness to think out and suggest any acceptable course for attaining a solution of the difficulty.” This was followed, a few days afterward, by another communication from the Venezuelan Secretary of State, repeating his urgent request for arbitration. From this communication it may not be amiss to make the following quotation:
Venezuela and Great Britain possess the same rights in the question under discussion. If the Republic should yield up any part of her pretensions, she would recognize the superior right of Great Britain, would violate the above-quoted article of the Constitution, and draw down the censure of her fellow-citizens. But when both nations, putting aside their independence of action in deference to peace and good friendship, create by mutual consent a Tribunal which may decide in the controversy, the same is able to pass sentence that one of the two parties or both of them have been mistaken in their opinions concerning the extent of their territory. Thus the case would not be in opposition to the Constitution of the Republic, there being no alienation of that which shall have been determined not to be her property.
On the tenth day of June, 1884, arbitration was again refused in a curt note from Lord Granville, declaring that “Her Majesty’s Government adhere to their objection to arbitration as a mode of dealing with this question.”
About this time complaints and protests of the most vigorous character, based upon alleged breaches of the agreement of 1850 concerning the non-occupation of the disputed territory broke out on both sides of the controversy, and accusations of aggression and occupation were constantly made. I shall not attempt to follow them, as in detail they are not among the incidents which I consider especially relevant to the presentation of my theme.
On the thirteenth day of December, 1884, Venezuela, in reply to a proposition of the British Government that the boundary question and certain other differences should be settled simultaneously, suggested, in view of the unwillingness of Great Britain to submit the boundary dispute to arbitration, that it should be presented for decision to a court of law, the members of which should be chosen by the parties respectively.
The British Government promptly declined this proposition, and stated that they were not prepared to depart from the arrangement made in 1877 to decide the question by adopting a conventional boundary fixed by mutual accord between the two governments. This was in the face of the efforts which had been made along that line and found utterly fruitless.