reaty and
anti-British sentiment at once flared up in all parts of the United
States. Most American authorities on international law and diplomacy
believed that Great Britain's interpretation of the treaty was correct.
Fortunately President Wilson took the same view, and in spite of strong
opposition he persuaded Congress to repeal the exemption clause. This
was an act of simple justice and it removed the only outstanding
subject of dispute between the two countries.

The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was by no means the only evidence of a change
of attitude on the part of Great Britain. As we have already seen,
Great Britain and the United States were in close accord during the
Boxer uprising in China and the subsequent negotiations. During the
Russo-Japanese war public sentiment in both England and the United
States was strongly in favor of Japan. At the Algeciras conference on
Moroccan affairs in 1905 the United States, in its effort to preserve
the European balance of power, threw the weight of its influence on the
side of England and France.

The submission of the Alaskan boundary dispute to a form of arbitration
in which Canada could not win and we could not lose was another
evidence of the friendly attitude of Great Britain. The boundary
between the southern strip of Alaska and British Columbia had never
been marked or even accurately surveyed when gold was discovered in the
Klondike. The shortest and quickest route to the gold-bearing region
was by the trails leading up from Dyea and Skagway on the headwaters of
Lynn Canal. The Canadian officials at once advanced claims to
jurisdiction over these village ports. The question turned on the
treaty made in 1825 between Great Britain and Russia. Whatever rights
Russia had under that treaty we acquired by the purchase of Alaska in
1867. Not only did a long series of maps issued by the Canadian
government in years past confirm the American claim to the region in
dispute, but the correspondence of the British negotiator of the treaty
of 1825 shows that he made every effort to secure for England an outlet
to deep water through this strip of territory and failed. Under the
circumstances President Roosevelt was not willing to submit the case to
the arbitration of third parties. He agreed, however, to submit it to
a mixed commission composed of three Americans, two Canadians, and Lord
Alverstone, chief justice of England. As there was little doubt as to
the views th