THE SAN JUAN ARBITRATION.

Evening Star, Issue 3082, 4 January 1873, Page 2

THE SAN JUAN ARBITRATION.

It is interesting to note the impression which has been produced on some of the correspondents of the t nglish press by the recent decision of the German Emperor on the San Juan question : A most instructive letter (observes the Pall Mail Gazette) appears in the Daily Telegraph from its correspondent at Berlin. It is on the subject of the San Juan decision, and the writer sets out by observing that Englishmen who live abroad experience some difficulty in appreciating at their full value the reasons that have induced British statesmen and legislators so earnestly to advocate a me*hod of adjusting international differences, the practical application of which promises, from our present experience, to be steadily unfavorable to British interests. The statesmen and legislators who live at home at ease “must have failed to realise the fact that, with the solitary exception of Germany, Great Britain is more generally and heartily disliked abroad than any other European Bower.” But then comes this important difference, “Prussia enjoys the advantage of being feared as well as hated—which is by no means England’s case. Each and every one of the leading continental nations owes us a grudge ; and so great is the temptation of paying us off in a manner with regard to which we cannot take umbrage, that one cannot wonder at ‘jurists and experts,’ who after all are but men, succumbing to it.” The correspondent goes ou to say that it is impossible to impugn the Emperor’s personal uprightness, but he proceeds ; “ I wish to remind you that for the last two years public feeling in (Germany, never very cordial a noire adresse has been absolutely hostile towards England ; that the Tower-stamped rifles, the Newcastle coal, and the Yorkshire hors s have never been forgivenjus ; that,-[especially within the last six mouths, the semi-official press has kept up incessantly a system of sneering attack upon our policy, our national characteristics, and our journalism ; that even the Liberal journals never speak of us without a sniff of scorn ; and that the very name of Englishman appears to stink iu the German nostrils. Does an English philanthropist send a LIOOO note anonymously to some charitable institution, a leading Berlin newspaper comments editorially upon his benevolent action as follows :— 1 It would seem thatiu this nation of grocers (Kramer) there is a good side to the absorbing pissiouf-.m money-making iu which it revels.’ Docs a British working man throw his wife out of the window or brain her with a poker ? Out comes a trueblue organ with a diatribe respecting ‘the native ferocity of those brutal Britons aggravated by their national drunkenness.’ That such ‘appreciations’ should be welcome pabulum to the public palate is a sign that animosity towards us pervades the feelings of all classes of society in Prussia. Under these circumstances it can hardly be surprising, however justly it may be deplored, that German ‘ experts and jurists,’ having to decide upon the delin tive interpretation of an article in a treaty —sufficiently vague in its wording to admit of more than one application—in the purport of which British interests of primary magnitude are bound up, should lean to the side of England’s adversary.” The moral is, that “people who are generally disliked, and not feared, should not confine the regulation of their affairs to anybody but them selves — and, if they do so, must be prepared to put up with the inevitable consequences of their imprudence.” The Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian calls attention to a little fact, hitherto unnoticed, which may go far to explain what has seemed to most people rather inexplicable—the apparently one-sided view taken by the German arbitrator of the claims of England to the Island of San Juan. He says “ The Deutsche IPJsche Corresponded states that the Emperor’s award iu the San Juan question has been mahily determined by the opinion of Professor Kiepert, the celebrated geographer. Without intending for an instant to throw suspicion on the perfect candour and honesty of the professor, I cannot help thinking that he was hardly in a position to take a thoroughly unbiassed view of the point at issue, from the mere circumstance that he had prejudged the question years ago. He has published numerous maps, which are now circulating by thousands throughout Germany, in all of which he has given the entire archipelago to the United States; and to have retracted his opinion now would have been to stultify bis own work. In saying this, Ido not, of course, mean to detract from the value of good faith of the learned professor’s original judgment, but merely to observe that he certainly cannot have come to the more recent consideiation of the case without leaning in favor of his former decision. My copy of his great atlas bears the date of IBiis, and Vancouver’s Island alone is colored as British territory.”