is intersected by islands, but those who drew up the treaty could not have been ignorant of the fact, as before the date of its signature Dr. Travers Twiss had published "The Oregon Question Examined," which contained a map showing the islands. The Treaty showed distinctly what line of a channel it meant. It said not the deepest channel, nor the most frequented, nor the best inner channel, but the channel which separated the Continent from Vancouver Island; that is, the whole of the channel between the two.

The Treaty of 1846 was based on two points-the extension of the 49th parallel to the sea, and the leaving of Vancouver's Island entire to Great Britain. So far, therefore, as the spirit of the treaty was concerned, it was clear that the only ground on which Great Britain could claim any of the intervening islands must be that they were so close to Vancouver's Island that they might be considered as belonging to it. It would be rather a strained construction which should predicate this of San Juan, and to include Orcas and Lopez Island in this category would be absurd. It is only the letter of the treaty, "the middle of the channel," that gives San Juan to Great Britain. This clear and unmistakable title the British Government had wilfully and of set purpose thrown away. The Treaty was signed on the 15th of June, 1846, under the direction of Lord Aberdeen, then Foreign Secretary. But in July, 1847, he was succeeded by Lord Palmerston, to whom fell the interpretation of the treaty which his predecessor had negotiated. In January, 1848, Sir John Crampton, then British Minister at Washington, by direction of Lord Palmerston, wrote a letter to Mr. Buchanan, in which he proposed the Rosario Strait as the channel mentioned in the treaty, although it was scarcely possible that he should not have known that when the treaty was accepted in the Senate it was supposed that the boundary would go through the Haro Channel, which had been claimed by Mr. Benton. Sir J. Crampton thought it necessary to apologise for the evident unfairness of the construction he had given to the treaty. "The main channel marked in Vancouver's chart," he said, "is indeed somewhat nearer to the continent than to Vancouver's Island, and its adoption would leave on the British side of the line rather more of those small islets, with which that part of the gulf is studded, than would remain on the American side. But these islets are of little or no value, and the only large and valuable island belonging to the group-namely, that called Whidbey's--would, of course, belong to the United States." This paragraph was in itself a condemnation of the whole course adopted

by Great Britain. Another step was taken when, at the close of 1856, Lord Clarendon sent Captain Prevost to meet the American Commissioner, and to insist on the Rosario Strait as the boundary. Lord Clarendon in his instructions said that any question as to which channel was to be adopted as the true line of boundary indicated by the treaty could only arise when there was more than one channel which might be supposed to answer the description of the treaty. But neither the Rosario nor the Haro Channel answered that description. The terms of the treaty could only be fulfilled by a third strait, and that was the Douglas Channel. Then came Lord Russell, who at length said that the Douglas Channel was the middle channel, and by his advocacy of that channel Lord Russell destroyed the British claim to the Rosario Strait, whilst by afterwards reserving his claim to the Rosario Strait he extinguished the Douglas Channel. At last Lord Stanley proposed that the whole matter be referred to arbitration. But when the Commissioners went to Washington, they went back to the old proposal of the Rosario Strait, and then proposed the Douglas Channel as a compromise; so that when they asked that the King of Prussia should decide what channel was meant in consonance with the treaty, the Americans refused, saying that they wanted a decision, not a compromise. If they had demanded the Douglas Channel as the utmost limit of their right, this could not have been said, and the decision would have been in our favour. Thus, Lord Palmerston, though dead, carried out his three objects, which were:

1. A twenty-five years' quarrel with the United States.

2. The loss of the island of San Juan to Great Britain.

3. That San Juan should be fortified against us by the United States.

Having gone over the other leading steps in the negotiations, Mr. Collet referred to the Geneva Arbitration. He left the Government and the Commissioners on the horns of the dilemma on which Lord Bury had impaled them. If, as the Government contended, we had done no wrong, no apology was due. If an apology was due, and he (Mr. Collet) thought it was due, the Government should have applied to Parliament to open a Court, and to furnish the money to adjudge and pay what reparation was due, not to the United States Government, but to the individuals injured. The so-called Arbitration at Geneva was not an Arbitration but a Conference, like those to which England had too often been a party, and the object of which was to dismember the Ottoman Empire. He was glad to see Lord Bury and his Grace the President of the

Colonial Institute, members respectively of the two Houses of Parliament, and also of Her Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council, in which the Treaty of Washington ought to have been thoroughly discussed before it was negotiated, coming before their fellow-subjects to say in ancient phrase that they did not despair of the republic; or, in modern language, that they protested against the dismemberment of the Empire. (Cheers.)

Major POORE and Mr. ARTHUR MILLS were to have spoken on the subject, but after the elaborate and pointed speech of Mr. Collet, they thought any remarks from them would be but mere surplusage.

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Colonel MILLINGTON SYNGE said it was quite evident on the occasion of the last meeting that the noble Chairman rightly appreciated the feeling of the Fellows of the Institute, and of the guests present, in expressing the admiration which the handling of the theme brought before the meeting by the noble Viscount commanded. Lord Bury did, to his (the speaker's) thinking, something more than present a most able and interesting criticism on an important subject; he gave not only a balance-sheet of a particular matter, which had been the subject of negotiation, but he added, and presented with the utmost happiness of execution, example how to elevate the most difficult theme-the contracting influences of partisanship. (Hear, hear.) The noble Lord had thus done a great service to the Institute, and with the consent of the meeting he (the speaker) would like to give his own views of that service. Surely in the abstract no greater difficulty could present itself in the political system under which we exist than the disincumberment from any question of real interest of the spirit of partnership, and it could not be denied that the system we had constructed or inherited debased every question of interest into a test of factional force. (Hear, hear.) And yet, to be of any service, the problem this Institute had to solve and escape from was to treat of every question that could most deeply move the heart, and so engender the fierceness of passion without any display of passion, and without the spirit of partisanship. Lord Bury would have left it on the records of the Colonial Institute that this was possible, and that they were not straining after a chimera. When this should have been obtained he hoped they would find they could combat the attacks, paralyse the wiles, and live down the sneers of a journal unswervingly hostile to every object they had taken in hand, by each and every member showing that he could tread in the footsteps of selfabnegation, as given to the Institute on the present occasion by the noble Lord. Forasmuch as he saw on every occasion that

served to touch the better part of our being, that party spirit had always to be banished, he longed for the day to come when the interests of the community should take such hold on those entrusted with their protection, that party spirit should be numbered with the evil spirits that had long since been condemned. (Cheers.) Passing to the immediate subject which had been so ably and impassionately brought before them, he said there were two prominent salient points in connection with the Washington negotiations that arrested attention. The one was that best known as the "Alabama" Claims; the other as the San Juan Award. Comment on these was quite unnecessary; indeed, he inclined to the opinion that advocacy of a cause often diminished the effect which a mere statement of circumstance would command. The "Alabama" Claims had been determined through an arrangement which abrogated the force of recognised law, and substituted in its place an agreement consented to by disputants under an existing law. It was not the deed but the law that had been judged. Whether brought about through avarice, cowardice, or conciliation, men might differ, but that fact was beyond contradiction. He did not think it required much stretch of historic fancy to picture the attitude of ancient Rome had the consuls and tribunes of the people conspired to abrogate her laws in order to bring her subjects under tribute, apology, and wrong to a foreign power. Every sign of public mourning and private grief would have proclaimed the agony of the republic, and women clad in the deepest garb of woe would have led their children to the Capitol, begging that these, rather than the sentiments of honour and the sanctity of law, might be sacrificed. Our infidelity seemed to have left us with less regard for this sanctity of law than did the mythology of ancient Rome. (Applause.) With regard to the San Juan Award, he agreed with the noble Chairman that the reference to the arbitrators was so hemmed in as to compel a decision adverse to our ostensible claim; but he confessed that with all the respect and reverence he had as a soldier come to entertain for the power of the sword, it seemed to him a most incongruous and inexplicable thing that there should have been chosen as the arbitrator in a peaceful question, a monarch whose whole life had been engaged in determining difficult questions by the rule of might. (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) It was the drollest burlesque he had ever heard of in real life. (Laughter.) He concluded by again remarking that the Institute was much indebted to the noble Lord for his able and interesting paper.

Mr. LABILLIERE believed that though most of the questions raised by the Treaty of Washington have been finally settled, they sug

gest many considerations of great value with respect to the future. Take for example the manner in which the decision-adverse as it had been to Canadian interests-had been received, and the admirable spirit which had been displayed by our Canadian fellow-subjects, in submitting to the severe losses which the treaty would entail upon them. What did we learn from that? We learnt that as Colonists they desired to sink provincial interests, in deference to the wishes of the whole Empire. He was one of those who advocated the federation of the Empire, and the friends of that policy were often told that they never could effect it, because provincial interests would start up, and the different parts of the Empire would never submit to the general control; but here we saw the Colonists sacrificing local interests for the common welfare, and how much more would they be prepared to do so if they had a real Federal Government in which the whole Empire would be represented? (Hear, hear.) But to pass on to another question. We had heard a great deal about the San Juan Award, but why have we now to deplore the loss of that island? Simply because, in the year 1846, few people thought it was of any consequence, or even knew of its existence. What, then, did we learn from this with regard to the future? We learnt that it was the duty of the Imperial Government-if we had one, and he questioned very much if we had, and he spoke in no party sense- -to look round the boundaries of the Empire, to see if questions of even greater importance than that of San Juan might not arise. He would mention one instance. There was the great and splendid island of New Guinea, 1,200 miles long by 30 to 300 miles in breadth, within sight of the coast of Australia, and only separated from it by a channel 80 miles wide. No effort whatever had as yet been made to secure the unclaimed portion of that island for our people. The importance of it was manifest; because as colonisation progressed in Australia a large number of vessels would every year pass through the Torres Straits, and it was of the utmost consequence to Imperial interests that we should have the command of both sides of those straits. (Hear, hear.) Within the last two years a Russian naturalist had been landed in the island from a Russian man-ofwar, to make scientific investigations, and everybody knew what that might mean. (A laugh.) If we lost such a position we should have more cause to regret it than the loss of the San Juan, because, whether the loss of the latter had taken place or not, we should have had a powerful neighbour in North America, whereas, by the loss of New Guinea, we may, in Australia, for the first time, be brought face to face with one of the great powers. (Hear, hear.)