ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10488, 22 June 1910, Page 4

ANGLO-AMERICAN RELATIONS.

[By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. |

(Per Press Association.)

Received Juno 21, at 9.45 p.m. t a., tt ' r £ omlon > J«no 21. In the House ol Commons Mr M'Kin n'on "Wood (Paliamentary Undor-Secre" tary for Foreign Affairs) stated ti, at Mr Bryce had been authorised to sign the pecuniary claims agreement with the Government of the United States

The signature of the Ahglo-AnicnV n „ pecuniary claims agreement will mniu, the end of a long and: tedious series ~f negotiations and the elimination of tho last important question between tli» two countries. Three years ago the Atlantic fisheries controversy was as acute as ever, and various points in regard to the Canadian boundary awaited adjustment, and the prospects for submission to arbitration of tho pecuniary claims were decidedly gloomy. Now however, the fisheries dispute has goinl before the Hague tribunal, the lionndary Waters Treaty has disposed of tho last outstanding boundary difficulties, and a general Anglo-American Arhjl tration Treaty has been concluded. The revision mid .reinforcement of tlu> ltush-Bogot Convention have been recently agitated once again, but in vicv of the friendly spirit in which tlu's matter was discussed it can hardly |„> said to rank as a successor to the ,il,| problems. For, with the clearing aivny of international jealousies has come the growth of international amity, the fostering of which is not the least ~f the services which Mr Bryce and the American statesmen with whom he has worked have rendered the Anglo-Saxon races. If the least spectacular of the settlements, the arbitration of pecuniary claims will not be the least important. According to the Washington correspondent of the London Times, the hi, s (, general claims commission was convened in 1853; and it dealt with claims whirh had arisen since 1812. In the seventies the civil Avar claims were cleared oil'. The present negotiations thus concern claims dating back before 181 L\ ami general claims which have arisen since 1853. Though the nature of the ment lias been considerably altered at the last moment, it will still be louml to provide a commission of three. It, will also he found to amply safemiard the interests of the .self-governing dominions, and in this respect the (amoral Arbitration Treaty of .1908 afforded „ useful precedent. Both that heaty and the Claims Agreement spring limn the same parent stem.