of the
United States refused this fair compromise, the Canadians offered to
refer the whole question to arbitration in order to ascertain the true
boundary under the Anglo-Russian treaty. They proposed that the
arbitrators should be three jurists of repute: one chosen for Great
Britain by the judicial committee of the privy council, one appointed by
the president of the United States, and the third a high international
authority to act as an umpire. The commissioners of the United States
positively refused to agree to this proposition and suggested the
appointment of six jurists, three to be appointed by Great Britain, and
the others by the United States. The Canadian representatives were
unable to agree to the amendment suggested by their American colleagues,
on the ground that it did not "provide a tribunal which would
necessarily, and in the possible event of differences of opinion,
finally dispose of the question," They also refused to agree to other
propositions of the United States as "a marked and important departure
from the rules of the Venezuelan boundary reference." The commissioners
of the United States were not only unwilling to agree to the selection
of an impartial European umpire, but were desirous of the appointment of
an American umpire--from the South American Republics--over whom the
United States would have more or less influence. Under these
circumstances the Canadian commissioners were unwilling to proceed to
the determination of other questions (on which a conclusion had been
nearly reached) "until the boundary question had been disposed of either
by agreement or reference to arbitration." The commission adjourned
until August in the same year, but the negotiations that took place in
the interval between the governments of Great Britain and the United
States on the question at issue were not sufficiently advanced to enable
a meeting at the proposed date. In these circumstances a _modus vivendi_
was arranged between the United States and Canada, whose interests have
been carefully guarded throughout the controversy by the government of
the imperial state.

This review of Canada's relations with the United States and England for
more than a century illustrates at once her weakness and her
strength--her weakness in the days of provincial isolation and imperial
indifference; her strength under the inspiring influences of federal
union and of an imperial spirit which gives her due recognition in the