Sir Stafford Northcote made a most imprudent and irritat- ing
statement in a speech at Exeter on Friday se'nnight. He asserted that the English Commissioners were responsible for having assured the Government that a promise had been given not to bring forward the Indirect Claims, and intimated pretty clearly that they had been wilfully deceived by the American Commis- sioners. The statement was immediately taken up by General Butler, who demanded an inquiry in the name of public honour, and an inquiry was accordingly ordered by the House of Repre- sentatives. We believe, for reasons we have endeavoured to explain elsewhere, that Sir Stafford is mistaken, that the " under- standing " was not that the Claims should be suppressed, but that the Treaty should be so worded that no legal tribunal could enter- tain them,—a material difference, as the onus of suppressing them would then fall on the Arbitrators, and not on the American Government. However that may be, Sir Stafford ought to have known that any reference to understandings behind the documents must enormously increase the difficulties of the American Govern- ment, and disincline it pro tanto to retreat from its apparent posi- tion. A statement like his should either not have been made at all, or have been made in the gravest and most deliberate manner by the whole Commission. On the whole, believing as we do that public diplomacy can very seldom be peaceful diplomacy—great populations bating to yield anything—we think it should not have been made at all.
