For the above-mentioned reasons, therefore, the circumstances of the case do not appear to Her Majesty’s Government to be such as to render arbitration applicable for a solution of the difficulty; and I have accordingly to request you, in making this known to the Venezuelan Government, to express to them the hope of Her Majesty’s Government that some other means may be devised for bringing this long-standing matter to an issue satisfactory to both powers. Let us pause here for a moment’s examination of the surprising refusal of Great Britain to submit this difficulty to arbitration, and the more surprising reasons presented for its justification. The refusal was surprising because the controversy had reached such a stage that arbitration was evidently the only means by which it could be settled consistently with harmonious relations between the two countries. It was on this ground that Venezuela proposed arbitration; and she strongly urged it on the further ground that inasmuch as the prohibition of her constitution prevented the relinquishment, by treaty or voluntary act, of any part of the territory which her people and their government claimed to be indubitably Venezuelan, such a relinquishment would present no difficulties if it was in obedience to a decree of a tribunal to which the question of ownership had been mutually submitted. In giving her reasons for rejecting arbitration Great Britain says in effect: The plan you urge for the utter and complete elimination of this constitutional prohibition--for its expurgation and destruction so far as it is related to the pending dispute--is objectionable, because we fear the prohibition thus eliminated, expunged, and destroyed will still be used as a pretext for disobedience to an award which, for the express purpose of avoiding this constitutional restraint, you have invited. The remaining objection interposed by Great Britain to the arbitration requested by Venezuela is based upon the fear that an award might be made in favor of the Venezuelan claim, in which case “a large and important territory which has for a long period been inhabited and occupied by Her Majesty’s subjects and treated as a part of the Colony of British Guiana would be severed from the Queen’s dominions.”