The American Counter-Case is very brief as compared with our
Counter-Case, and very moderate, and not very telling. It slightly strengthens the special case against our Government in relation to the 'Alabama' but the most significant passage in the Counter- Case is at the close, where the United States admit that they must establish "some tangible connection of cause and effect between the injuries for which they ask compensation and the acts com- mitted by the several vessels which the Treaty contemplates are to be shown to be the fount of those injuries." And it adds, "Neither party contemplates that the Tribunal will establish or be governed by rules in this respect, which will either on the one hand tend to release neutrals from their duty to observe a strict neutrality, or, on the other hand, will make a course of honest neutrality undidy burdensome." That is set in an altogether different key from the original "Case."
