the time. Yet
the months of conference had done good in giving the statesmen of each
country a better idea of the views and problems of the other, and had
contributed not a little to the final solution or the final forgetting
that the problems existed. Later, during Mr, now Lord, Bryce's term of
office as ambassador at Washington, most of the provisional
arrangements agreed upon were taken up and embodied in separate
agreements, accepted by {213} both countries. When the new era of
neighbourliness dawned, a few years later, some of the difficulties
which had long loomed large and boding ceased to have any more
importance than the yard or two of land once in dispute between farmers
who have since realized the folly of line-fence lawsuits.

After the adjournment of the Joint High Commission in 1899 the two
countries agreed upon a temporary Alaskan boundary-line for purposes of
administration, and it was not until early in 1903 that a treaty for
the settlement of the dispute was arranged between Great Britain and
the United States and accepted by Canada.

By this treaty the American proposal of a commission of three members
from each side was adopted. The Canadian Government agreed to this
plan with the greatest reluctance, urging to the last that arbitration
with an outside umpire was preferable. Seemingly, however, fairness
was secured by a clause in the treaty which provided that the members
should be 'impartial jurists of repute, who shall consider judicially
the questions submitted to them, and each of whom shall first subscribe
an oath that he will impartially consider the arguments and evidence
{214} submitted to the tribunal and will decide thereupon according to
his true judgment.' Further, the United States now agreed to abandon
its former position, that in any case territory then settled by
Americans should not be given up. That the United States risked
nothing by withdrawing this safeguard became clear when the American
commissioners were named--Elihu Root, a member of President Roosevelt's
Cabinet, which had declined to make any concession, Senator Lodge, who
had only a few months before declared the Canadian contention a
manufactured and baseless claim, and Senator Turner from Washington,
the state which was eager to retain a monopoly of the Klondike trade.
Undoubtedly these were able men, but not impartial jurists. In the
words of an American newspaper, 'the chances of convincing them of the
right