which the American claim was being asserted. Blaine, however, did
not lose everything. The treaty contained the extraordinary
provision that the arbitration tribunal, in case it decided
against the United States, was to draw up regulations for the
protection of the seal herds. These regulations when drafted did
not prove entirely satisfactory, and bound only the United States
and Great Britain. It required many years and much tinkering to
bring about the reasonably satisfactory arrangement that is now
in force. Yet to leave to an international tribunal not merely
the decision of a disputed case but the legislation necessary to
regulate an international property was in itself a great step in
the development of world polity. The charlatan who almost brought
on war by maintaining an indefensible case was also the statesman
who made perhaps the greatest single advance in the conservation
of the world's resources by international regulation.



CHAPTER IV. Blaine And Pan-Americanism

During the half century that intervened between John Quincy Adams
and James G. Blaine, the Monroe Doctrine, it was commonly
believed, had prevented the expansion of the territories of
European powers in the Americas. It had also relieved the United
States both of the necessity of continual preparation for war and
of that constant tension in which the perpetual shifting of the
European balance of power held the nations of that continent.
But the Monroe Doctrine was not solely responsible for these
results. Had it not been for the British Navy, the United States
would in vain have proclaimed its disapproval of encroachment.