Mr. Peirce to Mr. Hay.
St. Petersburg, June 29, 1900.
Sir: Referring to Mr. Tower’s dispatch, No. 256, of June 26, 1900, regarding the protocol of arbitration upon the Bering Sea seizures, and especially to the last paragraph thereof, a few words of explanation seem to me desirable.
On April 14 last, Mr. Tower, in his dispatch, No. 214, referred to the desirability of the employment of French as the language of the [Page 878] arbitration. In your reply thereto, No. 150, of May 24, 1900, you referred the ambassador to my dispatch, No. 139, of October 30, 1899.
In that dispatch I reported an interview which I had had with Professor de Martens, permanent counselor of the Imperial Russian minister of foreign affairs, in which he expressed the belief that English would be accepted as the language on our side, the Russian side employing French.
As was pointed out in my dispatch, however, both Professor de Martens and myself made the reservation that our negotiations were subject to the approval of our respective Governments.
On November 19, 1899, a note was received from the Russian foreign office, dated November 5 (17), 1899, insisting upon the importance of employing French as the language of the arbitration and intimating that otherwise it would result in the inconvenience of each of the parties communicating in his own language. Thus Professor de Martens’s agreement as to the language fell to the ground. A copy of this note was inclosed in the dispatch of the ambassador, No. 152, dated November 18, 1899.
Speaking in my unofficial capacity as associate counsel for the claimants, I may be permitted to say that the employment by Russia of the Russian language in the arbitration might, in my opinion, be dangerous to the interests of the claimants as well as complicating the proceedings and increasing their expense. For, as it is improbable that the arbitrator is familiar with the Russian language, as certainly the claimants are not, each would have to be provided with a translation, and while the Russian Government might and probably would, by courtesy, furnish Mr. Asser with a translation into French, they would hardly do so as regards us, unless we reciprocated. Thus, either there would be two versions of the Russian case, or we should have to supply a translation into French, which would in effect, so far as the cost of the proceedings is concerned, at any rate, amount to the same thing as if we wrote in French at the outset.
I have, etc.,