Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 7, 1896, and the Annual Report of the Secretary of State

Mr. Olney to Sir Julian Pauncefote.

Department of State,
Washington, July 13, 1896.

No. 438.]

Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt from you of a copy of Lord Salisbury’s dispatch to you of the 3d instant. Its object is to explain that his lordship, in his previous dispatch of May 22, did not intend that the boundary line fixed by the proposed arbitral tribunal should include in British Guiana any territory bona fide occupied by a British subject January 1, 1887. But as such territory must fall upon one side or the other of any complete boundary line, and was certainly not in any event to be assigned to Venezuela, all the present explanation would seem to show is that Lord Salisbury’s proposals of May 22 contemplated not a complete boundary line, but a part or parts of such line, namely, such part or parts as might divide uninhabited or unsettled territory. Such a conclusion requires a somewhat heroic construction of a paper which in terms proposes “the following basis of settlement of the Venezuelan boundary dispute,” by which the two Governments are to endeavor to agree “to a boundary line” upon the basis of a certain report, and by which, in absence of such an agreement, an arbitral tribunal is to “fix the boundary line upon the basis of such report.” Nothing in this language intimates that anything less than a complete boundary line is to be the outcome of the plan suggested.

The discussion is, however, hardly worth pursuing. If Lord Salisbury did not make his meaning clear in the dispatch of May 22, he certainly is entitled to make it clear now. There is another part of the dispatch which seems to me of more importance and upon which I wish to base an inquiry. “The claim of Venezuela,” it is said, “is so far-reaching that it brings into question interests and rights which can not properly be disposed of by an unrestricted arbitration. It extends as far as the Essequibo; it covers two-thirds of the colony of British Guiana; it impeaches titles which have been unquestioned for many generations.” That Venezuela claims territory extending to the Essequibo, or covering two-thirds of the colony of British Guiana, can not be regarded as being of itself an insuperable obstacle to unrestricted arbitration. But the objection that the Venezuelan claim “impeaches titles which have been unquestioned for many generations” is undoubtedly of the most weighty character. The inquiry I desire to put, therefore, is this: Can it be assumed that Her Majesty’s Government would submit to unrestricted arbitration the whole of the territory in dispute provided it be a rule of the arbitration, embodied in the arbitral agreement, that territory which has been in the exclusive, notorious, and actual use and occupation of either party for even two generations, or say for sixty years, shall be held by the arbitrators to be the territory of such party? In other words, will Her Majesty’s Government assent to unrestricted arbitration of all the territory in controversy with the period for the acquisition of title by prescription fixed by agreement of the parties in advance at sixty years?

I inclose copy of the dispatch for Lord Salisbury’s use. I should be glad to have its substance transmitted by cable, that it may be published with the other correspondence on the 18th instant.

I have, etc.,

Richard Olney.

Heads of proposed treaty between Venezuela and Great Britain for settlement of Venezuela boundary question as agreed upon between Great Britain and the United States.

I.

An arbitral tribunal shall be immediately appointed to determine the boundary line between the colony of British Guiana and the Republic of Venezuela.

II.

The tribunal shall consist of two members nominated by the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States and two members nominated by the judges of the British supreme court of justice and of a fifth juror selected by the four persons so nominated, or, in the event of their failure to agree within three months from the time of their nomination, selected by His Majesty the King of Sweden and Norway.

The person so selected shall be president of the tribunal.

The persons nominated by the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States and of the British supreme court of justice, respectively, may be judges of either of said courts.

III.

The tribunal shall investigate and ascertain the extent of the territories belonging to or that might lawfully be claimed by the United Netherlands or by the Kingdom of Spain, respectively, at the time of the acquisition by Great Britain of the colony of British Guiana—and shall determine the boundary line between the colony of British Guiana and the Republic of Venezuela.

IV.

In deciding the matters submitted the arbitrators shall ascertain all the facts which they deem necessary to a decision of the controversy and shall be governed by the following rules, which are agreed upon by the high contracting parties as rules to be taken as applicable to the case, and by such principles of international law not inconsistent therewith as the arbitrators shall determine to be applicable to the case.

rules.

(a) Adverse holding or prescription during a period of fifty years shall make a good title. The arbitrators may deem exclusive political control of a district, as well as actual settlement thereof, sufficient to constitute adverse holding or to make title by prescription.

(b) The arbitrators may recognize and give effect to rights and claims resting on any other ground whatever, valid according to international law, and on any principles of international law which the arbitrators may deem to be applicable to the case and which are not in contravention of the foregoing rule.

(c) In determining the boundary line, if territory of one party be found by the tribunal to have been at the date of this treaty in the occupation of the subjects or citizens of the other party, such effect shall be given to such occupation as reason, justice, the principles of international law, and the equities of the case shall, in the opinion of the tribunal, require.

• Richard Olney.
• Julian Pauncefote.

November 12, 1896.

[Note.—A treaty for the settlement of the Venezuela-British Guiana boundary controversy was signed at Washington on February 2, 1897, by Sir Julian Pauncefote, on the part of Great Britain, and Señor Don José Andrade, on the part of Venezuela. Its publication has not been authorized by the Governments.]