This want of adequate information may be traced as one of the difficulties which embarrassed the Netherlands Government in its endeavors to decide the points submitted to its arbitration in 1830. The same has been felt by the Government in England; it has been felt and admitted by the Government of the United States, and even by the local government of the contiguous State of Maine.
The British Government and the Government of the United States agreed, therefore, two years ago that a survey of the disputed territory by a joint commission would be the measure best calculated to elucidate and solve the questions at issue. The President proposed such a commission and Her Majesty's Government consented to it, and it was believed by Her Majesty's Government that the general principles upon which the commission was to be guided in its local operations had been settled by mutual agreement, arrived at by means of a correspondence which took place between the two Governments in 1837 and 1838. Her Majesty's Government accordingly transmitted in April of last year, for the consideration of the President, the draft of a convention to regulate the proceedings of the proposed commission. The preamble of that draft recited textually the agreement that had been come to by means of notes which had been exchanged between the two Governments, and the articles of the draft were framed, as Her Majesty's Government considered, in strict conformity with that agreement.
But the Government of the United States did not think proper to assent to the convention so proposed.
The United States Government did not, indeed, allege that the proposed convention was at variance with the result of the previous correspondence between the two Governments, but it thought that the convention would establish a commission of "mere exploration and survey," and the President was of opinion that the step next to be taken by the two Governments should be to contract stipulations bearing upon the face of them the promise of a final settlement under some form or other and within a reasonable time.
The United States Government accordingly transmitted to the undersigned, for communication to Her Majesty's Government, in the month of July last a counter draft of convention varying considerably in some parts (as the Secretary of State of the United States admitted in his letter to the undersigned of the 29th of July last) from the draft proposed by Great Britain, but the Secretary of State added that the United States Government did not deem it necessary to comment upon the alterations so made, as the text itself of the counter draft would be found sufficiently perspicuous.
Her Majesty's Government might certainly well have expected that some reasons would have been given to explain why the United States Government declined to confirm an arrangement which was founded upon propositions made by that Government itself and upon modifications to which that Government had agreed, or that if the American Government thought the draft of convention thus proposed was not in conformity with the previous agreement it would have pointed out in what respect the two were considered to differ.
Her Majesty's Government, considering the present state of the boundary question, concur with the Government of the United States in thinking that it is on every account expedient that the next measure to be adopted by the two Governments should contain arrangements which will necessarily lead to a final settlement, and they think that the convention which they proposed last year to the President, instead of being framed so as to constitute a mere commission of exploration and survey, did, on the contrary, contain stipulations calculated to lead to the final ascertainment of the boundary between the two countries.
There was, however, undoubtedly one essential difference between the British draft and the American counter draft. The British draft contained no provision embodying the principle of arbitration; the American counter draft did contain such a provision.
The British draft contained no provision for arbitration, because the principle of arbitration had not been proposed on either side during the negotiations upon which that draft was founded, and because, moreover, it was understood at that time that the principle of arbitration would be decidedly objected to by the United States.
But as the United States Government have now expressed a wish to embody the principle of arbitration in the proposed convention, Her Majesty's Government are perfectly willing to accede to that wish.