stefansson-wrangel-09-37-003

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weight which would attend precedence, but their opinions,
being those of men long versed in the subject, must be
highly regarded; for the in the absence of predcedent it
will be conceded that judges would turn to text writers
as to experts.

Finally, it must be remembered with what jealousy
nations protect their claims and pretensions to territory;
with what reluctance they submit questions pertaining to
territory to arbitration or to an international tribune.
Reliance seems to have been placed in the past on dip-
lomatic negotiations and bargains rather than upon judgicial
determination. As an example of this reluctance, see
Foreign Relations of the United States for 1896, pp. 222-240.
The question in discussion was a settlement of disputes between
Great Britain and the United States by arbitration. On page
223 in a letter from Lord Salisbury to Sir Julian Pauncefote,
then ambassador to the United States, it is said;

"According to their sympathies, men wish for the
victory of one side or the other.

"Such conflicting sympathies interfere most formi-
dably with the choice of an impartial arbitrator.
It would be too invidious to specify the various
forms of bias by which, in any important controversy
between two great powers, the other members of the
commonwealth of nations are visibly affected. In
the existing conditions of international sntiment
each great power could point to nations whose ad-
mission to any jury by whom its interests were to
be tried it would be bound challenge; and in a
litigation between two great powers the rival
challeges would pretty well exhaust the catalogue
of the nations from whom competent and suitable
arbitrators could be drawn. it would be easy, but