June 13 (Thursday).—Since Tuesday morning I have constantly resolved or discussed this proposition: that we should not be justified in breaking off the proceedings at Geneva (if an adjournment can be had after presentation of the summary), upon a refusal to present it. My determination upon it is now firmly rooted and tested by all the mental effort I can apply, and the time I thought had come to-day for looking forward as well as backward. I therefore wrote to the Queen in terms which might a little prepare her for difficulties in the cabinet. I saw Granville first, who had not reached my point, but seemed to come up to it; then arranged for him to see Halifax, Ripon to see Kimberley, and the chancellor [Lowe] to see Cardwell; as the knot of the probable difficulty is in these three. On the whole, I hope we shall, in one way or another, work through. At any rate, if anything like a government can be held together, I will not shrink.
June 15.—Cabinet 12-2-1/4, and with brief intervals to 7-½. Dined with Princess Louise. After dinner Granville and I went to see Mr. Hammond, then on to the F. 0., where we got (before midnight) the protocol of to-day from Geneva. Thank God that up to a certain point the indications on this great controversy are decidedly favourable.
June 16.—Sunday (Bunker Hill anniversary? [No—June 17]). Cabinet here 1-½-3-1/4. We sent off a telegram, which I hope may finish the good work at Geneva.
What happened at Geneva was this. When the day came, the British agent did not lodge his summary, but asked for an adjournment for eight months, as the two governments did not agree upon the scope of the arbitration. This looked dark enough, and the treaty seemed doomed. It was saved by Mr. Adams, the American nominee on the tribunal. When he reached Geneva and learned how things stood, he decided that the knot which they could not untie must be cut.[268] His golden idea was this: the arbitrators should make a spontaneous declaration that on the principles of international law the indirect claims ought to be excluded from their consideration. Adams saw his colleagues one by one, and [pg 412] brought them round to his view. The English chief justice had made up his mind that the whole thing was dead, as he had for many months been loudly telling all London that it ought to be. But when asked by Mr. Adams whether the spontaneous extra-judicial declaration would remove all obstacles to progress, Cockburn answered that he thought it would. “I said,” Mr. Adams continued, “that in that event I was prepared to make a proposition. I should be assuming a heavy responsibility; but I should do so, not as an arbitrator representing my country, but as representing all nations.” So the indirect claims were summarily ruled out, and the arbitration proceeded. In some notes prepared for the cabinet on all these proceedings (Feb. 4, 1873), Lord Tenterden, the clever and experienced British agent at Geneva, writes, “I cannot conclude this part of the memorandum without saying that the dignity, tact, self-command, and moderation with which Mr. Adams discharged his functions as arbitrator, did honour to his country.”
The Award
In September (1872) the five arbitrators at Geneva gave their award. They were unanimous in finding Great Britain liable for the acts of the Alabama; all save the British representative found her liable for the Florida; the Italian, the Swiss, and the American against the Englishman and the Brazilian found her liable for the Shenandoah after leaving Melbourne. They awarded in satisfaction and final settlement of all claims, including interest, a gross sum of about three and a quarter million pounds sterling. The award, though hardly a surprise, still inflicted a lively twinge of mortification on the masterful and confident people of this island. Opinion was divided, but the decision was not one of those that cut deep or raise the public temperature to fever. The prints of the opposition insisted that the result was profoundly vexatious, it was a bungled settlement, and the arguments used in favour of it were “wild sentimental rubbish.” On the other hand, the Times regarded it with profound satisfaction, and ministerial writers with a lyric turn hailed it as a magnificent victory, though we had to pay a heavy bill. A little balm was extracted from the fact that the Americans had preferred before the tribunal a [pg 413] demand of nine millions and a half, and thus got little more than one-third of what they had asked. So ended what has been called the greatest of all arbitrations, extinguishing the embers that could not have been left to smoulder without constant peril of a vast and fratricidal conflagration. The treaty of Washington and the Geneva arbitration stand out as the most notable victory in the nineteenth century of the noble art of preventive diplomacy, and the most signal exhibition in their history of self-command in two of the three chief democratic powers of the western world. For the moment the result did something to impair the popularity of Mr. Gladstone's government, but his association with this high act of national policy is one of the things that give its brightest lustre to his fame.
Chapter X. As Head Of A Cabinet. (1868-1874)
Rational co-operation in politics would be at an end, if no two men might act together, until they had satisfied themselves that in no possible circumstances could they be divided.—Gladstone.