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IV
THE DUTIES OF PEACE

A speech made at the dinner given by the Ohio Society in honor of the Peace Commissioners, in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, February 25, 1899.

THE DUTIES OF PEACE

You call and I obey. Any call from Ohio, wherever it finds me, is at once a distinction and a duty. But it would be easier to-night and more natural for me to remain silent. I am one of yourselves, the givers of the feast, and the occasion belongs peculiarly to my colleagues on the Peace Commission. I regret that more of them are not here to tell you in person how profoundly we all appreciate the compliment you pay us. Judge Day, after an experience and strain the like of which few Americans of this generation have so suddenly and so successfully met, is seeking to regain his strength at the South; Senator Frye, at the close of an anxious session, finds his responsible duties in Washington too exacting to permit even a day's absence; and Senator Davis, who could not leave the care of the treaty to visit his State even when his own reëlection was pending, has at last snatched the first moment of relief since he was sent to Paris last summer, to go out to St. Paul and meet the constituents who have in his absence renewed to him the crown of a good and faithful servant.

It is all the more fortunate, therefore, that you are honored by the presence of the patriotic member of the opposition who formed the regulator and balance-wheel of the Commission. When Senator Gray objected, we all reëxamined the processes of our reasoning. When he assented, we knew at once we must be on solid ground and went ahead. It was an expected gratification to have with you also the accomplished secretary and counsel to the Commission, a man as modest and unobtrusive as its president, and, like him, equal to any summons. In his regretted absence, we rejoice to find here the most distinguished military aid ordered to report to the Commission, and the most important witness before it—the Conqueror of Manila.

So much you will permit me to say in my capacity as one of the hosts, rather than as a member of the body to which you pay this gracious compliment.

It is not for me to speak of another figure necessarily missing to-night, though often with you heretofore at these meetings—the member of the Ohio Society who sent us to Paris! A great and shining record already speaks for him. He will be known in our history as the President who freed America from the last trace of Spanish blight; who realized the aspiration of our earlier statesmen, cherished by the leaders of either party through three quarters of a century, for planting the flag both on Cuba and on the Sandwich Islands; more than this, as the President who has carried that flag half-way round the world and opened the road for the trade of the Nation to follow it.

All this came from simply doing his duty from day to day, as that duty was forced upon him. No other man in the United States held back from war as he did, risking loss of popularity, risking the hostility of Congress, risking the harsh judgment of friends in agonizing for peace. It was no doubt in the spirit of the Prince of Peace, but it was also with the wisdom of Polonius: "Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear it, that the opposer may beware of thee!" Never again will any nation imagine that it can trespass indefinitely against the United States with impunity. Never again will an American war-ship run greater risks in a peaceful harbor than in battle. The world will never again be in doubt whether, when driven to war, we will end it in a gush of sentimentality or a shiver of unmanly apprehension over untried responsibilities, by fleeing from our plain duty, and hastening to give up what we are entitled to, before we have even taken an opportunity to look at it.

Does Peace Pacify?

But it must be confessed that "looking at it" during the past week has not been an altogether cheerful occupation. While the aspect of some of these new possessions remains so frowning there are faint hearts ready enough to say that the Peace Commission is in no position to be receiving compliments. Does protection protect? is an old question that used to be thrown in our faces—though I believe even the questioners finally made up their minds that it did. Does peace pacify? is the question of the hour. Well, as to our original antagonist, historic, courageous Spain, there seems ground to hope and believe and be glad that it does—not merely toward us, but within her own borders. When she jettisoned cargo that had already shifted ruinously, there is reason to think that she averted disaster and saved the ship. Then, as to Porto Rico there is no doubt of peace; and as to Cuba very little—although it would be too much to hope that her twelve years of civil war could be followed by an absolute calm, without disorders.

As to other possessions in the farther East, we may as well recognize at once that we are dealing now with the same sort of clever barbarians as in the earlier days of the Republic, when, on another ocean not then less distant, we were compelled to encounter the Algerine pirates. But there is this difference. Then we merely chastised the Algerines into letting us and our commerce alone. The permanent policing of that coast of the Mediterranean was not imposed upon us by surrounding circumstances, or by any act of ours; it belonged to nearer nations. Now a war we made has broken down the only authority that existed to protect the commerce of the world in one of its greatest Eastern thoroughfares, and to preserve the lives and property of people of all nations resorting to those marts. We broke it down, and we cannot, dare not, display the cowardice and selfishness of failing to replace it. However men may differ as to our future policy in those regions, there can be no difference as to our present duty. It is as plain as that of putting down a riot in Chicago or New York—all the plainer because, until recently, we have ourselves been taking the very course and doing the very things to encourage the rioters.

Why Take Sovereignty?

A distinguished and patriotic citizen said to me the other day, in a Western city: "You might have avoided this trouble in the Senate by refusing title in the Philippines exactly as in Cuba, and simply enforcing renunciation of Spanish sovereignty. Why didn't you do it?" The question is important, and the reason ought to be understood. But at the outset it should be clearly realized that the circumstances which made it possible to take that course as to Cuba were altogether exceptional. For three quarters of a century we had asserted a special interest and right of interference there as against any other nation. The island is directly on our coast, and no one doubted that at least as much order as in the past would be preserved there, even if we had to do it ourselves. There was also the positive action of Congress, which, on the one hand, gave us excuse for refusing a sovereignty our highest legislative authority had disclaimed, and, on the other, formally cast the shield of our responsibility over Cuba when left without a government or a sovereignty. Besides, there was a people there, advanced enough, sufficiently compact and homogeneous in religion, race, and language, sufficiently used already to the methods of government, to warrant our republican claim that the sovereignty was not being left in the air—that it was only left where, in the last analysis, in a civilized community, it must always reside, in the people themselves.

And yet, under all these conditions, the most difficult task your Peace Commissioners had at Paris was to maintain and defend the demand for a renunciation of sovereignty without anybody's acceptance of the sovereignty thus renounced. International Law has not been so understood abroad; and it may be frankly confessed that the Spanish arguments were learned, acute, sustained by the general judgment of Europe, and not easy to refute.

A similar demand concerning the Philippines neither could nor ought to have been acquiesced in by the civilized world. Here were ten millions of people on a great highway of commerce, of numerous different races, different languages, different religions, some semi-civilized, some barbarous, others mere pagan savages, but without a majority or even a respectable minority of them accustomed to self-government or believed to be capable of it. Sovereignty over such a conglomeration and in such a place could not be left in the air. The civilized world would not recognize its transfer, unless transferred to somebody. Renunciation under such circumstances would have been equivalent in International Law to abandonment, and that would have been equivalent to anarchy and a race for seizure among the nations that could get there quickest.

We could, of course, have refused to accept the obligations of a civilized, responsible nation. After breaking down government in those commercial centers, we could have refused to set up anything in its stead, and simply washed our hands of the whole business; but to do that would have been to show ourselves more insensible to moral obligations than if we had restored them outright to Spain.

How to Deal with the Philippines.

Well, if the elephant must be on our hands, what are we going to do with it? I venture to answer that first we must put down the riot. The lives and property of German and British merchants must be at least as safe in Manila as they were under Spanish rule before we are ready for any other step whatever.

Next, ought we not to try to diagnose our case before we turn every quack doctor among us loose on it—understand what the problem is before beginning heated partizan discussions as to the easiest way of solving it? And next, shall we not probably fare best in the end if we try to profit somewhat by the experience others have had in like cases?

The widest experience has been had by the great nation whose people and institutions are nearest like our own. Illustrations of her successful methods may be found in Egypt and in many British dependencies, but, for our purposes, probably best of all either on the Malay Peninsula or on the north coast of Borneo, where she has had the happiest results in dealing with intractable types of the worst of these same races. Some rules drawn from this experience might be distasteful to people who look upon new possessions as merely so much more government patronage, and quite repugnant to the noble army of office-seekers; but they surely mark the path of safety.

The first is to meddle at the outset as little as possible with every native custom and institution and even prejudice; the next is to use every existing native agency you can; and the next to employ in the government service just as few Americans as you can, and only of the best. Convince the natives of your irresistible power and your inexorable purpose, then of your desire to be absolutely just, and after that—not before—be as kind as you can. At the outset you will doubtless find your best agents among the trained officers of the Navy and the Army, particularly the former. On the retired list of both, but again particularly of the Navy, ought to be found just the experience in contact with foreign races, the moderation, wide views, justice, rigid method, and inflexible integrity, you need. Later on should come a real civil service, with such pure and efficient administration abroad as might help us ultimately to conclude that we ourselves deserve as well as the heathen, and induce us to set up similar standards for our own service at home. Meantime, if we have taught the heathen largely to govern themselves without being a hindrance and menace to the civilization and the commerce of the world, so much the better. Heaven speed the day! If not, we must even continue to be responsible for them ourselves—a duty we did not seek, but should be ashamed to shirk.

V
THE OPEN DOOR

A speech made at the dinner given by the American-Asiatic Association in honor of Rear-Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, at Delmonico's, New York, February 23, 1899.

THE OPEN DOOR

The hour is late, you have already enjoyed your intellectual feast, you have heard the man you came to hear, and I shall detain you for but a moment. The guest whom we are all here to honor and applaud is returning from a journey designed to promote the safety and extension of his country's trade in the Chinese Orient. He has probably been accustomed to think of us as the most extreme Protectionist nation in the world; and he may have heard at first of our recent acquisition on the China Sea with some apprehension on that very account.

United States a Free-Trade Country.

Now, there are two facts that might be somewhat suggestive to any who take that view. One is that, though we may be "enraged Protectionists," as our French friends occasionally call us, we have rarely sought to extend the protective system where we had nothing and could develop nothing to protect. The other is that we are also the greatest free-trade country in the world. Nowhere else on the globe does absolute free trade prevail over so wide, rich, and continuous an expanse of territory, with such variety and volume of production and manufacture; and nowhere have its beneficent results been more conspicuous. From the Golden Gate your guest has crossed a continent teeming with population and manufactures without encountering a custom-house. If he had come back from China the other way, from Suez to London, he would have passed a dozen!

When your Peace Commissioners were brought face to face with the retention of the Philippines, they were at liberty to consider the question it raised for immediate action in the light of both sides of the national practice. Here was an archipelago practically without manufactures to protect, or need for protection to develop manufactures; and here were swarming populations with whom trade was sure to increase and ramify, in proportion to its freedom from obstructions. Thus it came about that your Commissioners were led to a view which to many has seemed a new departure, and were finally enabled to preface an offer to Spain with the remark that it was the policy of the United States to maintain in the Philippines an open door to the world's commerce. Great Protectionist leader as the President is and long has been, he sanctioned the declaration; and Protectionist as is the Senate, it ratified the pledge.

The Open Door.

Under treaty guaranty Spain is now entitled to the Open Door in the Philippines for ten years. Under the most favored nation clause, what is thus secured to Spain would not be easily refused, even if any one desired it, to any other nation; and the door that stands open there for the next ten years will by that time have such a rising tide of trade pouring through it from the awakening East that no man thenceforward can ever close it.

There are two ways of dealing with the trade of a distant dependency. You may give such advantage to your own people as practically to exclude everybody else. That was the Spanish way. That is the French way. Neither nation has grown rich of late on its colonial extensions. Again, you may impose such import or export duties as will raise the revenue needed for the government of the territory, to be paid by all comers at its ports on a basis of absolute equality. In some places that is the British way. Henceforth, in the Philippines, that is the United States way. The Dingley tariff is not to be transferred to the antipodes.

Protectionists or Free-traders, I believe we may all rejoice in this as best for the Philippines and best for ourselves. I venture to think that we may rejoice over it, too, with your distinguished guest. It enables Great Britain and the United States to preserve a common interest and present a common front in the enormous commercial development in the East that must attend the awakening of the Chinese Colossus; and whenever and wherever Great Britain and the United States stand together, the peace and the civilization of the world will be the better for it.

VI
SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY OF PARIS

This discussion of the advances in International Law and changes in national policy traceable to the negotiations that ended in the Peace of Paris, was written in March, for the first number of "The Anglo-Saxon Review" (then announced for May), which appeared in June, 1899.

SOME CONSEQUENCES OF THE TREATY OF PARIS

In 1823 Thomas Jefferson, writing from the retirement of Monticello to James Monroe, then President of the United States, said:

Great Britain is the nation which can do us the most harm of any one on all the earth, and with her on our side we need not fear the world. With her, then, we should most sedulously cherish a cordial friendship, and nothing would tend more to knit our affections than to be fighting once more, side by side, in the same cause.

As these lines are written,² the thing which Jefferson looked forward to has, in a small way, come to pass. For the first time under government orders since British regulars and the militia of the American colonies fought Indians on Lake Champlain and the French in Canada, the Briton and the American have been fighting side by side, and again against savages. In a larger sense, too, they are at last embarked side by side in the Eastern duty, devolved on each, of "bearing the white man's burden." It seems natural, now, to count on such a friendly British interest in present American problems as may make welcome a brief statement of some things that were settled by the late Peace of Paris, and some that were unsettled.

Whether treaties really settle International Law is itself an unsettled point. English and American writers incline to give them less weight in that regard than is the habit of the great Continental authorities. But it is reasonable to think that some of the points insisted upon by the United States in the Treaty of Paris will be precedents as weighty, henceforth, in international policy as they are now novel to international practice. If not International Law yet, they probably will be; and it is confidently assumed that they will command the concurrence of the British government and people, as well as of the most intelligent and dispassionate judgment on the Continent.

When Arbitration is Inadmissible.

The distinct and prompt refusal by the American Commissioners to submit questions at issue between them and their Spanish colleagues to arbitration marks a limit to the application of that principle in international controversy which even its friends will be apt hereafter to welcome. No civilized nation is more thoroughly committed to the policy of international arbitration than the United States. The Spanish Commissioners were able to reinforce their appeal for it by striking citations from the American record: the declaration of the Senate of Massachusetts, as early as 1835, in favor of an international court for the peaceful settlement of all disputes between nations; the action of the Senate of the United States in 1853, favoring a clause in all future treaties with foreign countries whereby difficulties that could not be settled by diplomacy should be referred to arbitrators; the concurrence of the two Houses, twenty years later, in reaffirming this principle; and at last their joint resolution, in 1888, requesting the President to secure agreements to that end with all nations with whom he maintained diplomatic intercourse.

But the American Commissioners at once made it clear that the rational place for arbitration is as a substitute for war, not as a second remedy, to which the contestant may still have a right to resort after having exhausted the first. In the absence of the desired obligation to arbitrate, the dissatisfied nation, according to the American theory, may have, after diplomacy has completely failed, a choice of remedies, but not a double remedy. It may choose arbitration, or it may choose war; but the American Commissioners flatly refused to let it choose war, and then, after defeat, claim still the right to call in arbitrators and put again at risk before them the verdict of war. Arbitration comes before war, they insisted, to avert its horrors; not after war, to afford the defeated party a chance yet to escape its consequences.

The principle thus stated is thought self-evidently sound and just. Americans were surprised to find how completely it was overlooked in the contemporaneous European discussion—how general was the sympathy with the Spanish request for arbitration, and how naïf the apparently genuine surprise at the instant and unqualified refusal to consider it. Even English voices joined in the chorus of encouraging approval that, from every quarter in Europe, greeted the formal Spanish appeal for an opportunity to try over in another forum the questions they had already submitted to the arbitrament of arms. The more clearly the American view is now recognized and accepted, the greater must be the tendency in the future to seek arbitration at the outset. To refuse arbitration when only sought at the end of war, and as a means of escaping its consequences, is certainly to stimulate efforts for averting war at the beginning of difficulties by means of arbitration. The refusal prevents such degradation of a noble reform to an ignoble end as would make arbitration the refuge, not of those who wish to avoid war, but only of those who have preferred war and been beaten at it. The American precedent should thus become a powerful influence for promoting the cause of genuine international arbitration, and so for the preservation of peace between nations.

Does Debt Follow Sovereignty?

Equally unexpected and important to the development of ordered liberty and good government in the world was the American refusal to accept any responsibility, for themselves or for the Cubans, on account of the so-called Cuban debt. The principle asserted from the outset by the American Commissioners, and finally maintained, in negotiating the Peace of Paris, was that a national debt incurred in efforts to subdue a colony, even if called a colonial debt, or secured by a pledge of colonial revenues, cannot be attached in the nature of a mortgage to the territory of that colony, so that when the colony gains its independence it may still be held for the cost of the unsuccessful efforts to keep it in subjection.

The first intimations that no part of the so-called Cuban debt would either be assumed by the United States or transferred with the territory to the Cubans, were met with an outcry from every bourse in Europe. Bankers, investors, and the financial world in general had taken it for granted that bonds which had been regularly issued by the Power exercising sovereignty over the territory, and which specifically pledged the revenues of custom-houses in that territory for the payment of the interest and ultimately of the principal, must be recognized. Not to do it, they said, would be bald, unblushing repudiation—a thing least to be looked for or tolerated in a nation of spotless credit and great wealth, which in past times of trial had made many sacrifices to preserve its financial honor untarnished.

It must be admitted that modern precedents were not altogether in favor of the American position. Treaties ceding territory not infrequently provide for the assumption by the new sovereign of a proportional part of the general obligations of the ceding state. This is usually true when the territory ceded is so considerable as to form an important portion of the dismembered country. Even "the great conqueror of this century," as the Spanish Commissioners exclaimed in one of their arguments, "never dared to violate this rule of eternal justice in any of the treaties he concluded with those sovereigns whose territories he appropriated, in whole or in part, as a reward for his victories." They cited his first treaty of August 24, 1801, with Bavaria providing that the debts of the duchy of Deux-Ponts, and of that part of the Palatinate acquired by France, should follow the countries, and challenged the production of any treaty of Napoleon's or of any modern treaty where the principle of such transfer was violated.

They were able to base a stronger claim on the precedents of the New World. They were, indeed, betrayed into some curious errors. One was that the thirteen original States, at the close of the Revolutionary War, paid over to Great Britain fifteen million pounds as their share of the public debt. Another was that the payment of the Texas debt by the United States must be a precedent now for its payment of the Cuban debt—whereas the Texas debt was incurred by the Texas insurgents in their successful war for independence, while the Cuban debt was incurred by the mother country in her unsuccessful effort to put down the Cuban insurgents. But as to the Spanish-American republics, they were more nearly on solid ground. It was true, and was more to the point than most of their other citations, that every one of these Spanish-American republics assumed its debt, that most of them did it before their independence was recognized, and that they gave these debts contracted by Spain the preference over later debts contracted by themselves. The language in the treaty with Bolivia was particularly sweeping. It assumed as its own these debts of every kind whatsoever, "including all incurred for pensions, salaries, supplies, advances, transportation, forced loans, deposits, contracts, and any other debts incurred during war-times or prior thereto, chargeable to said treasuries; provided they were contracted by direct orders of the Spanish government or its constituted authorities in said territories." The Argentine Republic and Uruguay, in negotiating their treaties, expressed the same idea more tersely: "Just as it acquires the rights and privileges belonging to the crown of Spain, so it also assumes all the duties and obligations of the crown."

The argument was certainly obvious, and at first sight seemed fair, that what every other revolted American colony of Spain had done, on gaining its independence, the last of the long line should also do. But an examination shows that in no case were the circumstances such as to make it a fair precedent for Cuba. In the other colonies the debts were largely due to their own people. To a considerable extent they had been incurred for the prosecution of improvements of a pacific character, generally for the public good and often at the public desire. Another part had been spent in the legitimate work of preserving public order and extending the advantages of government over wild regions and native tribes.³ The rich, compact, populous island of Cuba had called for no such loans up to the time when Spain had already lost all of her American colonies on the continent, and had consequently no other dependency on which to fasten her exacting governor-generals and hosts of other official leeches. There was no Cuban debt. Any honest administration had ample revenues for all legitimate expenses, and a surplus; and this surplus seems not to have been used for the benefit of the island, but sent home. Between 1856 and 1861 over $20,000,000 of Cuban surplus were thus remitted to Madrid. Next began a plan for using Cuban credit as a means of raising money to re-conquer the lost dominions; and so "Cuban bonds" (with the guaranty of the Spanish nation) were issued, first for the effort to regain Santo Domingo, and then for the expedition to Mexico. By 1864 $3,000,000 had been so issued; by 1868 $18,000,000—not at the request or with the consent of the Cubans, and not for their benefit. Then commenced the Cuban insurrection; and from that time on, all Spain could wring from Cuba or borrow in European markets on the pledge of Cuban revenues and her own guaranty went in the effort to subdue a colony in revolt against her injustice and bad government. The lenders knew the facts and took the risk. Two years after this first insurrection was temporarily put down, these so-called Cuban debts had amounted to over $170,000,000. They were subsequently consolidated into other and later issues; but whatever change of form or date they underwent, they continued to represent practically just three things: the effort to conquer Santo Domingo, the expedition to Mexico, and the efforts to subdue Cuba. A movement to refund at a lower rate of interest was begun in 1890, and for this purpose an issue of $175,000,000 of Spanish bonds was authorized, to be paid out of the revenues of Cuba, but with the guaranty of the Spanish nation. Before many had been placed the insurrection had again broken out. Thenceforward they were used not to refund old bonds, but to raise money for the prosecution of the new war. Before its close this indebtedness had been swollen to over double the figure named above, and a part of the money must have been used directly in the war against the United States.

In the negotiations Spain took high moral ground with reference to these debts. She utterly denied any right to inquire how the proceeds had been expended. She did not insist for her own benefit on their recognition and transfer with the territory. She was concerned, not for herself, but for international morality and for the innocent holders. Some, no doubt, were Spanish citizens, but many others were French, or Austrian, or of other foreign nationalities. The bonds were freely dealt in on the Continental bourses. A failure to provide for them would be a public scandal throughout civilization; it would cause a wide-spread and profound shock to the sense of security in national obligations the world over, besides incalculable injustice and individual distress.

But the fact was that these were the bonds of the Spanish nation, issued by the Spanish nation for its own purposes, guaranteed in terms "by the faith of the Spanish nation," and with another guaranty pledging Spanish sovereignty and control over certain colonial revenues. Spain failed to maintain her title to the security she had pledged, but the lenders knew the instability of that security when they risked their money on it. All the later lenders and many of the early ones knew, also, that it was pledged for money to continue Spain's efforts to subdue a people struggling to free themselves from Spanish rule. They may have said the morality or justice of the use made of the money was no concern of theirs. They may have thought the security doubtful, and still relied on the broad guaranty of the Spanish nation. At any rate, caveat emptor! The one thing they ought not to have relied upon was that the island they were furnishing money to subdue, if it gained its freedom, would turn around and insist on reimbursing them!