AN AMERICAN VIEW OF THE INDIRECT CLAIMS.

Southland Times, Issue 1600, 2 July 1872, Page 3

AN AMERICAN VIEW OF THE INDIRECT CLAIMS.

In a letter to the New York "World Mr Elihu Burrett remarks : — " After all the brilliant speeches and arguments that have been made to sustain them, I would ask any intelligent and dispassionate American if he believes these ' consequential damages' would be admitted by our Supreme Court at Washington if they were submitted to its decision, with the best legal counsel in America to plead for them, and without a single English lawyer to speak on the other side. I will go a little further. If England had served us as Grermany did France, should we have had the heart and face to put upon her a heavier fine than the bill of costs that Sumner presented in his great oration ? Now, to my mind, it is these claims that touch the very core of our national dignity. No one believes they can be admitted. The Treaty itself constructively excludes their consideration, in providing only and specifically for the settlement of direct damages. Then, what is the object of injecting them into ' our case ?' It is a miserable parallel, but it looks what sharp ' slop ' dealers call an Irish price put upon their goods, from which they may descend to a profitable bargain for themselves, and at the same time please their purchasers with the sense or assurance of a large reduction. Now this policy may befit the clothesdealers of Chatham-Btreet, New York, but it does not comport with the dignity of the American nation. Our loading journals and leading men are very jealous of the influences that may affect the decision of the Geneva Court. Can they believe that the bench of arbitrators are ignorant of the partisan speculations at Washington in regard to the effect of these claims on the next Presidential election ? Are not these speculations over and above board enough to be known all over Europe ? Well, here comes a policy touching our national dignity to the quick. We come before that Court which we have placed above all other earthly tribunals for its impartial justice. We present to it claims signed, sealed, and delivered as pure c buncombe,' merely for their political effects at home, or at the extreme best, to get a fair reward for the direct damages the Court was erected to judge. One of these two objects, or both, must be evident. And the best of them is beneath the dignity of a Power which claims to stand in the first rank of civilised nationa."