made, in some way to limit the scope of the demand in regard to the Philippines-a design then as ever afterwards frustrated. In the opinion of the American Commissioners the note in question was far from "explicit"; nor can it be maintained that the President, while hearing that note with "visible displeasure" and adhering with "real stubbornness" to the phrase "control, disposition and government", because it "prejudged" nothing, at the same time accepted the words of limitation.

But what does Mr. Cambon say as to the introduction of the subject of the Protocol, which had not previously been suggested? After further conversation the President, as reported by Mr. Cambon, said: "There might be a means of putting an end to all misunderstanding; we might draw up a projet, which shall reproduce the conditions proposed to Spain in the same terms in which I have already framed them, and which shall establish the terms within which there shall be named on the one hand the Plenipotentiaries charged with negotiating the treaty of peace in Paris, and on the other hand the special Commissioners entrusted with the determination of the details of the evacuation of Cuba and Porto Rico."

The American Commissioners are unable to perceive the "immense difference" between this version of the President's words and that given in their own paper. The President suggests a means for putting an end, not to any particular misunderstanding, but to "all misunderstanding." And how does he propose to do this? By drawing up a Protocol, which "shall reproduce the conditions proposed to Spain," not with qualifications, reservations or explanations, but "in the same terms in which I have already framed them." There was not, nor could there be, any misapprehension as to the meaning and effect of these words, nor was any betrayed in the telegram, heretofore quoted by the American Commissioners, in which Mr. Cambon advised the Spanish Government that the Government of the United States had "decided to state precisely (préciser), in a Protocol, the bases upon which peace negotiations must, in its judgment, be entered upon."

With this telegram Mr. Cambon communicated the text of the Protocol; and if his telegraphic summary of the note of the Secretary of State of the 10th of August was, as the Spanish Commissioners admit, inaccurate, it is equally true that his previous telegram conveyed with no uncertainty the purpose of the United States in requiring the adop tion of a Protocol.

If the fact were less clear than it is, that the refusal of the President to accept the Spanish reply of the 7th of August as in any respect a satisfactory answer to the demands of the United States, gave rise to the Protocol, the American Commissioners would deem it proper to examine in detail the references to that note in the Spanish memorandum. But they will, under the circumstances, merely advert to the statement that Spain in the paragraph relating to the Philippines explicitly "reserved" her sovereignty over the archipelago, the impli cation being that she expressly withdrew it from the sphere of negotiation. The language of the note is, however, that "the Spanish Government must declare that, while accepting the third condition, they do not a priori renounce the sovereignty of Spain over the archipelago." This language, instead of withdrawing the sovereignty from discussion, implies that it may, as the result of the negotiations, be necessary to renounce it. The American contention, however, does not require further analysis of the note of August 7 than has been given in this and the preceding memoranda of the American Commissioners. It was

rejected by the President, and the final agreement of the parties. reduced to the clear and unequivocal terms of the Protocol.

The Spanish Commissioners endeavor to argue that there could have been no intention to include in the powers of this Joint Commission the question of the sovereignty of the Philippines, because the Secretary of State of the United States, in his note of the 30th of July last, after stating the demands of his Government, added: "If the terms hereby offered are accepted in their entirety, Commissioners will be named by the United States to meet similarly authorized Commissioners on the part of Spain for the purpose of settling the details of the treaty of peace and signing and delivering it under the terms above indicated." Is the "unexpressed demand" of the United States, inquire the Spanish Commissioners, for the cession of an immense territory, understood by the American Commissioners to be a detail of the treaty of peace?

The American Commissioners have no difficulty in replying that they do so understand it, but not in the sense which the question implies. It is evident that the Spanish memorandum seeks to construe the language of the Secretary of State as if he had used in connection with the word "details" the word "unimportant," and actually proposed to refer to the Commissioners the settlement of only "unimportant details.". It should seem unnecessary to say, however, that in speaking of "details" he merely referred to the particulars of the treaty as considered separately and in relation to the whole. It can hardly be supposed that if the two Governments had intended that the negotiations of the treaty of peace should be occupied with details of little importance, they would each have sent five commissioners to a neutral capital for the purpose of arranging them.

But it is argued by the Spanish Commissioners that the words "control, disposition and government", even taken by themselves, do not comprehend the subject of sovereignty, but merely that of governmental "reforms". To the American Commissioners such an interpretation is incomprehensible. If nothing but "reforms" had been intended, it could never have occurred to either party to employ for that purpose three words none of which expressed its meaning, while each of them contained a broader one. On the other hand, the use of the word "sovereignty" in conjunction with the words actually employed was unnecessary, while, if used alone, it would have defeated the very object of postponing the whole subject of the Philippines for future. determination. "Control, disposition and government" included everything. "Sovereignty" would have excluded everything but itself, and have left to future determination merely the question of its own existence, supreme and unconditional. In the event of the United States desiring to take only a part of the archipelago, such a limitation of the scope of the negotiations would have been injurious to both parties.

The Spanish Commissioners, however, have sought to restrict the meaning of the words "control, disposition and government," by an appeal to the French text, into which the original English was translated; and as the French word "contrôle", by which "control" was translated, bears a significance less extensive than the latter, they seem to contend that all the other words, both in the English and in the French text, should be reduced to harmony with it.

To the American Commissioners, this argument appears to involve the elimination of the entire English text and of the greater part of the French. It first strikes out, as at least superfluous, the English words "disposition and government," and the French words "disposition et gouvernement", and then limits the meaning of the English "control"

to that of the French "contrôle". It thus virtually reduces the stipu lation to the single French word last mentioned. By no principle of construction can this process be defended.

The American Commissioners are therefore, for the reasons which they have stated, compelled to maintain that by the plain and comprehensive terms of the Protocol, as construed in their normal sense and in the light of all the circumstances of its adoption, the future of the Philippines was left, in the fullest measure, to the determination of this Joint Commission.

This conclusion renders it necessary to answer the proposals of the Spanish Commissioners for the resignation by this Commission of its peacemaking functions under the Protocol of the 12th of August, and the transfer to other persons of the duty of determining the question now particularly before it.

The Spanish Commissioners propose that the Joint Commission, shall, instead of disposing of the question of the Philippines, adopt one of the following courses:

I. Remit that question to the two Governments, for adjustment, if possible, by direct negotiation; or

II. Advise those governments to submit it to an arbitration, in which the true sense of Articles III and VI shall be determined.

To the first of these proposals it is sufficient to reply that both Governments have by the solemn engagement of the Protocol committed to their direct representatives here assembled the duty of concluding a definitive treaty of peace which shall determine the destiny of the archipelago. That these representatives shall, after weeks of patient investigation and interchange of views in oral discussion and written argument, surrender their task unaccomplished to other representatives of the same Governments, is a suggestion which cannot be seriously entertained. Indeed, the memorandum of the Spanish Commissioners frankly admits that in the event of a new disagreement the situation would be the same as that which now confronts the Paris conference. It is equally futile now to invite arbitration as to the meaning of terms plainly expressed in the Protocol. "To avoid misunderstanding," as the United States declared in its note of the 10th of August, the precise agreement of the two Governments was put into a concise and simple form. Shall it be said that this Joint Commission is incapable of interpreting the very compact under which it has assembled! The principle of international arbitration can have no application to such a case. To avoid war no government, it is believed, will do or suffer more than the one which the American Commissioners have the honor to represent in this conference. Unfortunately no way for arbitration was opened before the actual conflict began. Arbitration, as we have had occasion heretofore to observe, precedes war, to avoid its horrors; it does not come after the trial by battle to enable either party to escape its consequences.

The American Commissioners, feeling that this body must accept the responsibility of reaching conclusions, must decline to ask the assistance of an arbitrator. It is true that the very constitution of a joint commission like the present presupposes a possible irreconcilable difference of opinion of representatives of one nation opposed to others of equal number and authority. In such an event, nothing remains but for one of the contesting parties to yield its opinions in order that a peaceful solution may be reached. In the present case the American Commissioners have determined to make concessions to the extent embodied in the proposals which will conclude this memorandum.

The United States is accused by the Spanish Commissioners of harsh and severe measures in dealing with a discomfited enemy. In the light of events which led to and characterized the war, no less than of historical precedents which might be cited, this charge is found to be entirely groundless.

For half a century the attempts of the Cubans to overthrow the sovereignty of Spain over the island, within a hundred miles of the shores of the United States, have produced serious disturbances in that country, grave and constant interference with its commerce, and frequent danger of the rupture of friendly relations with Spain. How could the conditions existing in the island be otherwise than of vital concern to us? The Cubans were our neighbors, with whom our relations were necessarily intimate and extensive; and they had been engaged in a struggle for independence with stronger reasons than existed in our own case when we rebelled against the mother country. The revolution of 1895, like the prior attempts at independence, entailed upon us heavy burdens. It made it necessary to patrol our coasts, to tax both civil and military resources in order to detect and prevent expeditions from our shores in the interests of the insurgents, and to repress the natural sympathy of our citizens, while we remained passive witnesses of misery, bloodshed and starvation in a land of plenty almost within sight of our borders. At length came the destruction of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana, with the loss of 266 of her crew. While we may not attribute this catastrophe to the direct act of a Spanish official, it betrayed, in the opinion of the United States, such neglect or inability on the part of Spain to secure the safety of the ship of a friendly nation in the principal harbor of the island as to induce Congress to recite it as an outgrowth of conditions which required our intervention.

War ensued; and in less than four months nearly all the ports of Cuba were blockaded, Santiago was taken, the Spanish fleets in the West Indies and the Philippines destroyed, Porto Rico was about to surrender, Manila was on the point of capitulating, and all the colonies of Spain lay practically at the mercy of the United States. This recital is made, not in an unbecoming spirit of triumph, but because it exhibits the conditions that existed, and the advantages that the United States enjoyed, when, preferring peace to war, it agreed to the Protocol.

The Spanish Commissioners in their memorandum have in diplomatic words expressed their surprise at our want of magnanimity to a defeated country. How does the case appear in the light of what has been stated? We might have demanded from Spain indemnity in money for the cost of the war, which, even if no unforeseen contingencies occur, will have amounted to $240,000,000, at the close of the present calendar year, to say nothing of further expenses which will be required under the laws of the United States existing at the outbreak of the war. We might have required compensation for our injuries and losses, national as well as individual, prior to the outbreak of the war. Yet we have asked for no money. From the relinquishment of Spanish sovereignty in Cuba we derive no compensation. Porto Rico, Guam and the Philippines will bring burdens as well as benefits, and, regarded simply as indemnity, will be grossly inadequate to compensate the United States for the mere pecuniary cost of the war; and yet, in spite of all this, for the sake of peace, we propose to make to Spain liberal concessions. Can we be justly charged with abuse of our opportunities,

or with taking undue advantage of the misfortunes of an adversary? The American Commissioners can perceive no ground for such a charge. On the contrary, they think that the Spanish Commissioners should accept our terms at once, and restore peace between the two countries. Even if the United States were disposed to permit Spanish sovereignty to remain over the Philippines, and to leave to Spain the restoration of peace and order in the islands, could it now in honor do so? The Spanish Commissioners have, themselves, in an earlier stage of these negotiations, spoken of the Filipinos as our allies. This is not a relation which the Government of the United States intended to establish; but it must at least be admitted that the insurgent chiefs returned and resumed their activity with the consent of our military and naval commanders, who permitted them to arm with weapons which we had captured from the Spaniards, and assured them of fair treatment and justice. Should we be justified in now surrendering these people to the Government of Spain, even under a promise of amnesty, which we know they would not accept?

If, on the other hand, the United States should be content to retain Luzón alone, could anything but trouble be expected from the division of the group? Would not contrasts in government, in modes of administration, and in the burdens of taxation, in different islands lying so closely together, but largely inhabited by kindred peoples, produce discontent among the inhabitants? If the natives of the islands that remained under Spanish rule should, as doubtless would be the case, continue in insurrection, would not the natives of the American islands endeavor to help them, by fitting out hostile expeditions and furnishing arms and supplies? Would not complaints then be made by one Government against the other, leading to crimination and recrimination and probably in the end to another international war?

The situation that has arisen in the Philippines was neither foreseen nor desired by the United States, but, since it exists, that Government does not shirk the responsibilities growing out of it; and the American Commissioners now make to the Spanish Commissioners, in the light of those responsibilities, a final proposition.

The proposal presented by the American Commissioners in behalf of their Government for the cession of the Philippines to the United States having been rejected by the Spanish Commissioners, and the counterproposal of the latter for the withdrawal of the American forces from the islands and the payment of an indemnity by the United States to Spain having been rejected by the American Commissioners, the American Commissioners, deeming it essential that the present negotiations, which have already been greatly protracted, should be brought to an early and definite conclusion, beg now to present a new proposition embodying the concessions which, for the sake of immediate peace, their Government is under the circumstances willing to tender.

The Government of the United States is unable to modify the proposal heretofore made for the cession of the entire archipelago of the Philippines, but the American Commissioners are authorized to offer to Spain, in case the cession should be agreed to, the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) to be paid in accordance with the terms to be fixed in the treaty of peace.

And it being the policy of the United States to maintain in the Philippines an open door to the world's commerce, the American Commissioners are prepared to insert in the treaty now in contemplation a stipulation to the effect that, for a term of years, Spanish ships and