Hay was again annoyed. He referred to their claim as a "trumped-up charge," but Mr Root's remarks just quoted are sufficient to show that this was probably the petulant outburst of a wearied Secretary of State.

Upon this failure the British Commissioners asked for arbitration by a tribunal of jurists, based upon lines similar to those of the Venezuela settlement. But President Roosevelt, in strange disregard of the facts, gave expression to a widely held view that the Canadian claim was manufactured on account of the gold rush, and though his Ambassador to Britain counselled arbitration he refused to listen to him, distrusting his pro-English bias. Finally, in 1903 Mr Hay persuaded the Senate to consent to a treaty for the appointment of a tribunal of "six impartial jurists of repute" who were to consider judicially the questions submitted to them, "each of whom shall first subscribe an oath that he will impartially consider the arguments and evidence presented to the tribunal and will decide thereupon according to his true judgment." This was satisfactory, but when President Roosevelt appointed the Hon. Elihu Root, and Senators Lodge and Turner as the American "impartial jurists" a storm of dissent broke out in Canada and in Britain'. Mr Lodge had declared two

1 Also the Springfield Republican in the United States criticized the selection.

years previously that "a more manufactured and baseless claim" had never been set up, and Senator Turner was politically committed to the interests of Seattle1. There seems to be no doubt that Roosevelt took the matter out of Hay's hands. In a letter to Justice Holmes, which he was told he might show "privately and unofficially" to Joseph Chamberlain, he wrote:

If there is a disagreement I wish it to be distinctly understood not only that there will be no arbitration of the matter, but that in my message to Congress I shall take a position which will prevent any possibility of arbitration hereafter... to run the line, as we claim it, by our own people without any further regard to the attitude of England and Canada2.

The contemptuous tone of a part of the American press, the suggestion of another section of the press that the English representative would be won over, and injudicious remarks even of eminent men both

It is interesting on the other hand to read in the recently published Correspondence between President Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge that in the President's opinion Sir Wilfrid Laurier had shortly before set forth in a speech in Parliament at Ottawa "the claims which he apparently expects the Canadian members of the Tribunal to uphold as advocates rather than to consider as judges" (II, 4). A few months later he writes to Lodge: "We must not weaken on points of serious importance. It is unnecessary for me to say this for you all three feel it quite as strongly as I do" (11, 67).

2 J. F. Rhodes, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations, p. 258. Cf. also Roosevelt-Lodge Correspondence (1925), II, 44 f.

east and west to the effect that the annexation of Canada in the not distant future was "predetermined and inevitable," heightened the tenseness of feeling in the Dominion. From many Canadian quarters came the demand that the British government should refuse to take part in the tribunal, but the government of the Dominion appointed two representatives and the Home government named the Chief Justice of England, Lord Alverstone. Such was the preparation in both countries for this judicial Com

mission.

By the terms of the treaty the tribunal was to decide: (1) Where the southern boundary began; which is the Portland Channel; (2) Was it the intention and meaning of the Russian Convention of 1825 that there should remain in the exclusive possession of Russia a continuous fringe of coast on the mainland not exceeding ten marine leagues in width separating the British possessions from the bays, ports, inlets, havens and waters of the ocean from the 56th degree of latitude north to the intersection of such line with the 141st degree of latitude; (3) Should the width of the fringe belonging to Russia be measured from the general line of the mainland or from the heads of the inlets, of which the most important was the Lynn Canal on which Dyea and Skagway were situated1.

I See Roosevelt-Lodge Correspondence (1925), II, 5.

The only point on which unanimity was secured was that the southern boundary, the Portland channel, which had been surveyed and described by Vancouver in 1793, ran north of the two large islands Pearse and Wales. There agreement ended. The Americans held that the channel then ran between Wales and Sitklan, so that the latter and another small island belonged to the United States. With them Lord Alverstone agreed; but the two Canadians recorded violent dissent and asserted that their colleague had without warning to them changed his mind on this point in order to avoid a deadlock. Though this decision was of much less practical importance than the others, it occasioned deep feeling throughout Canada.

As in other boundary questions the chief remaining difficulties arose from the faulty maps that had been used for the original treaty. It had been assumed that there was a more or less continuous range of mountains parallel to the coast, but on actual survey this proved not to be so. It therefore became necessary to fall back upon the intent of the treaty. Sir Charles Bagot, who negotiated it, wrote: "It is evident to me that I cannot avoid giving some lisière, however narrow, upon the mainland'," because the Russians were bound to keep the British on the further side of the mountains in order to prevent the

I

Bagot Papers, quoted in Canada and its Provinces, VIII, P. 952.

Hudson's Bay Company from getting any port from which it could trade upon the coast. This was taken by the Americans and Lord Alverstone to be the intent of the treaty, and in accordance therewith they decided that the crest of mountains about thirty miles from the general line of the coast should be the boundary, and that where there was no range near and parallel to the coast, the boundary should be at the east of a strip of land not exceeding ten leagues in width. The same judges ruled that the width of this strip should be measured from the heads of inlets or tide water. The effect of this decision was to exclude Canada from access to her Yukon trade through any port of her own upon the Pacific.

The announcement of the decision raised public opinion in Canada to a white heat. As expressed by a contemporary observer, the general conviction was that the decision was diplomatic, not judicial; that it was due to the British policy of cultivating friendship with the United States; but that the provocation, great though it was, would not seriously undermine loyalty to Great Britain'. Here and there men who had studied the question advised calmness, and some of those who were best acquainted with the Pacific coast openly stated that Canada's case was not as strong as had been popularly supposed. The Americans did little to alleviate the soreness of the Canadians. Some ■ Canadian Annual Review, 1904, p. 374.