News of the Week
THE sinking, off the Louisiana coast, of the rum-run- -I- ing auxiliary schooner `1'xin Alone,' said to -have been in Canadian ownership, by an American ,Coastguard cutter raises one of-those serious questions which in the past have set nations at loggerheads ,and have even caused War. It is impossible, however, to observe the character of the present dispute as to rights and wrongs without being aware of the vast change in temper which has been brought about by the growth of arbitration and all the machinery of conciliation. The Trent ' affair during the American Civil War, when the Federal authorities made arrests in a British ship on the high seas, was within an ace of becoming a cases belli, and it is said that there would actually have been war had not Queen Victoria herself modified the intemperate despatch of Lord John Russell. We do not want another dispute so full of anxiety as that, and happily, for the reasons we have given, there is no sign that we shall have it. Here is an obvious case for arbitration, and, if necessary, for the penalizing awards of arbitration.
