Mr. Bright has written an admirable letter to Mr. Cyrus
Field on the Alabama arbitration, which has been published in the New York Evening Mail, and v'ill no doubt have a wary considerable effect on the public judgment of the United States. It puts with great force the absolutely unverifiable character of the indirect claims. "I confess," he says, "I am greatly surprised at the case -to be submitted to the Geneva Tribunal. There is too much of what we call ' attorneyship ' in it, and too little of 'statesmanship.' It is rather like a passionate speech than a thoughtful State document. And what a folly to offer to a tribunal claims which cannot be proved! No facts and no figures can show that the war was prolonged by the mischief of the pirate ships. And surely what cannot be proved by distinct evidence cannot be made the subject of an award. This country will not go into a Court to ask for an award which, if against it, it will never accept. An award against it in the matter of indirect claims will never be paid, and therefore the only honest course is to object now before going into court. Has the coming Presidential election, or nomination, anything to do with this matter ? " Mr. Bright adds that the United States might very properly withdraw these indirect claims, as far as demanding any judgment on them at Geneva is concerned, but retain them in the Case as "historic evidence" of the American feeling as to the magnitude of the injury of which they complain. Any one who would not be satis- fied with that solution, Mr. Bright declares, must be the kind of man who does not consider friendship and peace to be intrin- sically desirable. No doubt that kind of man really exists, but might he not be satisfied with keeping "historic evidence" that he might have been more quarrelsome than he really was? That notion of Mr. Bright's of ticketing greedy and insatiable pretensions with the grand title of "historic evidence" of something generously waived by America, is a truly sagacious one. It is precisely the sort of bridge of which Powers willing to retreat from an untenable case avail themselves. But are the United States in that sober and salutary condition of mind ?
