to exceed fifteen per kilometer, to protect their respective railway lines. They also engage to restore to China the exclusive administration of the places to be evacuated, and disavow the possession in Manchuria of“ any territorial advantages or preferential or exclusive concessions to the impairment of Chinese sovereignty or inconsistent with the principle of equal opportunity;" and promise "not to obstruct any general measures common to all countries which China may take for the development of the commerce or industry of Manchuria." Russia transfers (Art. V.) to Japan the lease of Port Arthur and the Liao-tung Peninsula, and also (Art. VI.) the railway between Chang-chun-fu and Kuan-chang-tsu and Port Arthur, and the appurtenant coal mines. Apart from this railway, Russia and Japan engage (Art. VII.) to use their railways in Manchuria exclusively for commercial and industrial and not for strategic purposes. Hishida, The International Position of Japan as a Great Power, 275–277. X. COLOMBIA, § 814. As to the Isthmus of Panama, see supra, §§ 337-350. 66 By a fundamental law" of July 12, 1821, or, as some say, by an act of December 17, 1819, a union was formed between New Granada and Venezuela under the name of the Republic of Colombia. In 1829-1831 this republic was dismembered, and from it arose the three republics of New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador. By a treaty of December 23, 1834, the respective liabilities of these republics upon the obligations of the former Republic of Colombia was determined. In 1862 New Granada became the United States of Colombia, and later, by the constitution of August 4, 1886, the Republic of Colombia. Moore, Int. Arbitrations, IV. 3494, 3526-3527; 19 Br. & For. State Pap. 1350-1357; For. Rel. 1886, 176; Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Green, Feb. 3, 1854, MS. Inst. Columbia. As to the Republic of Panama, see supra, § 344. As to the treaty between the United States and New Granada of 1846 For a history of the diplomatic relations between the United States and Concerning trade on the San Blas coast, see For. Rel. 1890, 239, 241, 245, As to the Weckbecker claim and its settlement, see For. Rel. 1894, 193, 195. Panama, see Mr. Moore, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Lincoln, min. to The board of commissioners, under the treaty between the three States formerly composing the Republic of Colombia, denied that that treaty authorized them to consider the claims of citizens of the United States. This decision was altogether unexpected to the United States, since it was understood that certain articles of the treaty, which were inserted at the instance of Mr. McAfee, the diplo matic representative of the United States in Colombia, were expressly designed to confer such power. With reference to this condition of things, the Department of State said: "This government never deemed itself bound to wait for the completion of such arrangements as those States proposed to make among themselves for the adjustment of the debts of Colombia. Upon the dissolution of that confederacy, its members became and have been informed that we held them jointly and severally liable for our claims, but rather than urge them upon the individual States in a way that might be inconvenient to them, it was thought best to suspend further diplomatic recourse in regard to them and to direct the chargé d'affaires at Bogotá to present them as an informal agent to the board of commissioners, as you have done. Strictly speaking, it was the duty of the individual claimants to have appointed private agents to advocate their interests before the board of commissioners. With this view, upon the receipt at this Department of a copy of the convention, a notice, embracing a summary of its contents, was published in the Globe. If that board should have failed to make a just disposition of the claims, it would then have been the duty as it was the intention of this government to seek satisfaction from the individual States through the ordinary diplomatic channel. Consequently, as the time for the presentation of claims to the board may have expired before this letter can reach you. we must proceed to make a demand on the separate states. You will therefore avail yourself of the first convenient opportunity to inform the government of New Granada of this determination. You will state that in consideration of the forbearance of this government and especially of the patience with which it waited for the ratification of the convention between those states and that the just claims of our citizens have not been acknowledged by the board of commissioners, it has good reason to expect that the several states of which the Colombian Confederacy was composed will use all practicable diligence towards examining those claims and deciding upon their merits. That for whatever sums may be allowed to be due, the United States will be willing to exonerate those governments from all further accountability in any particular case, upon the payment of their proportions, according to the convention adverted to. An informal agreement with the minister of foreign affairs like that concluded by Mr. Moore in the cases of the Josephine and Ranger would be sufficient for us, but in case the Granadian government should desire a treaty on the subject according to the forms prescribed by the constitutions of the two countries, a full power, authorizing you to negotiate and conclude one, is herewith transmitted." Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Semple, chargé d'affaires to Colombia, For the adjustment of claims, see the following treaties: With Colombia "Although this government has always maintained that the three States of which the Republic of Colombia was composed are jointly and severally liable for the claims of our citizens against that Republic, yet from consideration for the condition of those States it was deemed advisable to reserve the application of this principle and to await the result of such arrangements as they might make among themselves for the adjustment of these claims. This was effected by the treaty between New Granada and Venezuela of the 23d of December, 1834, which was subsequently acceded to by Ecuador. Pursuant to that treaty New Granada became responsible for fifty, Venezuela for twenty-eight and a half, and Ecuador for twenty-one and a half per cent of the debts of the Republic of Colombia. Upon this basis New Granada and Venezuela have both paid their proportion of the claims in the cases of the Josephine and Ranger." Mr. Buchanan, Sec. of State, to Mr. Livingston, min. to Ecuador, May 13, 1848, MS. Inst. Ecuador, I. 3. The convention with Colombia of October 3, 1824, was "the first of a long series of treaties of amity and commerce with the several American States, of Spanish or Portugese origin." It contained, besides liberal provisions for the abolition of discriminating duties, "an agreement, which has since been incorporated into many other treaties, that infractions of the treaty by citizens of either party should not interrupt the harmony and good correspondence between the two nations." Davis, Notes, Treaty Volume (1776–1887), 1224, 1273. For the convention of 1824 and correspondence, see President Monroe's message, Feb. 22, 1825; Am. State Papers, For. Rel. V, 696. Colombian vessels are entitled, under the treaty with the United States, to make repairs in our ports when forced into them by stress of weather, but they can not enlist recruits there, either from among our citizens or foreigners, except such as may be transiently within the United States. (Wirt, At. Gen., 1825, 2 Op. 4.) The convention of 1824 was terminated in 1836. H. Doc. 551-vol 5-36 The consular convention between the United States and New Granada of 1850, Art. III., sec. 10, as to the administration of estates is discussed in the case of Suzannah Smith, For. Rel. 1891, 469-486; supra, § 722. As to the postal convention of 1844, see supra, § 346. Article IV. of the treaty between the United States and New Granada [Colombia] of December 12, 1846, which prohibits the laying of discriminating duties, does not require the admission of vessels of the one country to the coasting trade of the other. Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Perez, Colombian min., May 27, 1871, For. The United States refused to admit, under Article V. of the treaty with New Granada [Colombia] of December 12, 1846, Peruvian bark as a product of Colombia. Mr. Marcy, Sec. of State, to Mr. Paredes, March 25, 1853, MS. Notes to By Article XIII. of the treaty between the United States and New Granada of 1846, the contracting parties engaged to give "special protection" to the persons and property of each other's citizens, and in furtherance of this object they agreed that such citizens might appear in person or by attorney "in all their trials at law and be present at the taking of all examinations and evidence which may be exhibited in such trials." This stipulation expressly guarantees the right not merely to be present at the trial, but also at the taking of all examinations which may be used in evidence at the trial. It also applies to criminal as well as to civil proceedings. The equivalent in the Spanish text of the phrase "trials at law" is "litigios." By the uniform usage of all English-speaking lands the phrase "trials at law" embraces criminal as well as civil proceedings, and, in order that the declared object of the treaty may be obtained, the word litigios" should receive the same reasonable construction, which is also consistent with a liberal interpretation of the Spanish word in the light of the whole text of the treaty. 66 Mr. Hay, Sec. of State, to Mr. Beaupré, No. 331, Nov. 16, 1900, MS. Inst. The right guaranteed by the treaty as thus interpreted "was already (Ibid.) The claims convention of 1864 with the United States of Colombia confers on the commission thereby created authority to decide the cases which had been presented within the time specified, and which had not been decided by the commission appointed under the con vention with New Granada of 1857, and therefore conferred jurisdiction to determine what cases had been presented to, but not decided by, the old commission. Speed, At. Gen., 1865, 11 Op. 402. See, as to claims conventions with Colombia, Moore, Int. Arbitrations, XI. CONGO. § 815. With reference to a letter of Mr. Henry S. Sanford, in which the hope was expressed that Commodore Shufeldt would be instructed not to admit in any form, in any action he might take with regard to American commerce through or at the mouth of the Congo River, the doctrine, which might be insisted upon by Portugal and perhaps by other powers, of a right of exclusive control in that neighborhood inhering in the fact of first discovery, Mr. Evarts said: "A rigid insistence upon the exclusive control referred to, as based on the fact of first discovery, might, without great difficulty, be shown to contain the element of impracticability as applied to the case of African territory in particular. Setting aside for the present the rights of the natives of that continent as not here under special consideration, it is only necessary to advert to the circumstance that the recent original discoveries there of travellers representing various nations are of such a nature and related to each other in so complicated a manner, to show that the application of the doctrine of control inhering in the fact of first discovery would be demonstrably inadmissible by the general commercial world. "It appears to me, indeed, that the representatives of the world's commerce could admit the existence of no asserted title (of any foreign country at least) to territory in Africa, which should be made offensive to the general and peaceful pursuits of that commerce, without the closest scrutiny and investigation as to its fundamental merits." Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Thompson, Sec. of Navy, Feb. 3, 1879, 126 MS. Dom. Let. 329. "The rich and populous valley of the Congo is being opened to commerce by a society called the International African Association, of which the King of the Belgians is the president and a citizen of the United States the chief executive officer. Large tracts of territory have been ceded to the association by native chiefs, roads have been opened, steamboats placed on the river, and the nuclei of states established at twenty-two stations under one flag, which offers frecdom to commerce and prohibits the slave trade. The objects of the |